«^> 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/bookbinderstheirOOpridrich 


Of  this  book  there  have  been 
printed  Jive  hundred  copies,  of 
ivhich  this  is 

No. 


BOOKBINDERS 
AND  THEIR  CRAFT 


BOOKBINDERS 

AND    THEIR    CRAFT, 

By  S.  T.   PRIDEAUX 

W 

AUTHOR  OF  "  AN  HISTORICAL  SKETCH  OF  BOOKBINDING" 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1903 


* 


Copyright,  1903,  by 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons 

for  United   States  of  America 

Published,  April,  1903 


C     C  c  l 

(   <         <      I  I 

C    C     I  c  c    t  c 


Printed  by  The  Gilliss  Press 
New   York,   U.  S.  A. 


PREFACE 


F  the  papers  collected  in  this 
volume,  those  on  "  Roger 
Payne  "  and  "  English  and 
Scottish  Bindings  of  the  Last 
Century  "  were  written  for 
the  "Magazine  of  Art,"  and  are  here  re- 
printed by  the  courtesy  of  Messrs.  Cassell. 
The  notice  of  M.  Thoinan's  important  book 
was  contributed  to  "  Bibliographica,"  and  is 
included  by  the  kind  permission  of  Messrs. 
Kegan  Paul  and  Co.  All  the  rest  appeared 
either  in  "  Scribner's  Magazine  "  or  "  The 
Bookbuyer,"  except  the  second  paper  on 
"Early  Italian  Bindings,"  which  is  now  added 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

in  order  to  complete  the  outline  of  the  subject. 
They  are  practically  issued  as  they  were  first 
written,  with  the  drawbacks  and  limitations 
of  the  restricted  magazine  article:  for  to 
have  attempted  much  alteration  would  have 
deprived  them  of  their  original  character. 
There  are  fresh  illustrations  to  the  paper  on 
"Design  in  Bookbinding/'  some  additional 
plates  of  early  Italian  and  stamped  bindings, 
and  others  in  "Notes  on  Pattern-Making" 
showing  modern  applications  of  Oriental 
motives. 

I  am  indebted  to  Miss  M.  A.  Bell  for  her 
help  with  the  designs  in  this  paper,  which 
has  enabled  me  to  give  greater  variety  to 
the  series  of  plates  in  illustration  of  the 
points   under  discussion. 

I  must  express  my  very  grateful  acknow- 
ledgment to  Mr.  W.  Y.  Fletcher  for  his  aid 
so  willingly  rendered  in  the  revision  of  the 
proofs. 


PREFACE 

It  only  remains  for  me  to  thank  Messrs. 
Scribner  for  their  initiative  in  the  matter 
of  this  reprint,  and  to  express  a  hope  that 
the  increasing  interest  in  binding  shown  in 
America  will  justify  its  issue. 

S.  T.  P. 


/ 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I  Some  English  and  Scottish  Bind- 
ings of  the  Last  Century  -  i 

II   Characteristics   and  Peculiarities 

of  Roger  Payne,  Binder    -     -      27 

III  "Les  Relieurs  Fran9ais"  57 

IV  Design  in  Bookbinding  79 
V  Some  French  Binders  of  To-day    109 

VI   Early  Stamped  Bindings  -     -     -    163 

VII   Early  Italian  Bindings     -     -     -   211 

VIII   Some  Notes  on  Pattern-making   267 


SOME  ENGLISH  AND  SCOTTISH  BINDINGS 
OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY 


I 


SOME  ENGLISH  AND  SCOTTISH  BINDINGS 
OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY 

T  seems  worth  while,  with  the 
increased  interest  in  bind- 
ings, to  call  attention  to  two 
types  that  have  not  hitherto 
met  with  the  recognition 
they  deserve  :  these  are  the  Scottish  bindings 
of — roughly  speaking — the  early  eighteenth 
century,  and  the  English  inlaid  work  of  about 
the  same  date,  but  earlier.  Although  coupled 
together  for  the  purpose  of  treatment  in  this 
article,  they  bear  no  resemblance  to  each 
other,  and  are,  in  fact,  two  perfectly  distinct 
styles. 

Unfortunately  the  obscurity  that  prevails, 
with  very  few  exceptions,  with  regard  to 


e    c>.c    V*  *      '    c 

c    e      «    <f    ,    ■ 


«   EOdKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

the  whole  history  of  binding  as  a  craft,  exists 
also  at  this  period.  All  one  can  do  under 
the  circumstance  is  to  direct  the  attention 
of  the  public  interested  in  the  subject  to  cer- 
tain types  of  design  thrown  into  shadow 
hitherto  by  the  more  prominent  ones,  in  the 
hope  that  by  study  of  individual  specimens 
something  of  the  genius  and  development  of 
ornament,  as  applied  to  binding,  may  be  dis- 
covered, and  perhaps,  by  the  way,  something 
also  of  the  binder  and  of  the  conditions  under 
which  he  worked.  This,  it  is  hoped,  may 
prove  sufficient  excuse  for  this  paper,  which 
certainly  lacks  the  historic  interest  attached 
to  bindings  done  for  French  princes  and 
great  collectors. 

The  readers  of  such  literature  of  binding 
as  exists  must  surely  be  somewhat  wearied 
by  the  limitation  of  treatment  to  Grolier  and 
Maioli,  Le  Gascon,  the  Eves,  and  Derome, 
with  an  occasional  mention  of  Mearne  and 
Roger  Payne  as  the  only  English  binders 
worthy  of  consideration.  "  Les  Relieurs 
Fran5ais,  1560— 1800,"  by  Ernest  Thoinan 

4 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH    BINDINGS 

contains  nearly  all  that  is  likely  to  be  known 
of  binding,  as  the  art  was  pursued  and  cultiv- 


BIBLE    WITH    INLAID    BINDING 


ated  in  France.  It  certainly  contains  the  result 
of  the  most  recent  and  elaborate  researches 
among  the  archives  of  the  Bibliotheque 
Nationale,  and  though  we  may  not  always 

5 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

agree  with  the  conclusions  of  the  author  on 
certain  long  disputed  points,  the  interest  of 
his  material  is  not  affected  by  his  deduc- 
tions. For  information  as  to  the  early  his- 
tory of  the  Guild  of  Binders  and  Gilders  in 
Paris,  its  connection  with  the  University,  and 
its  statutes,  the  account  given  by  M.  Thoi- 
nan  is  the  only  one.  It  is  followed  by  a  short 
history  of  the  different  ornamental  styles 
through  which  the  art  passed,  and  concludes 
with  a  biographical  notice  of  all  the  French 
binders.  Far  more  information  is  therein  con- 
tained than  has  ever  been  put  together  before, 
including  much  entirely  unknown  hitherto  to 
the  English  reader.  With  the  appearance 
of  this  work  we  may  hope  that  those  who 
want  to  discuss  binding  will  give  up  the  repe- 
tition of  platitudes  about  the  great  French 
craftsmen,  and  devote  themselves  more  to  see- 
ing what  can  be  discovered  in  our  own 
country.  I  am  ready  to  admit  that  the  art 
never  attained  over  here  anything  like  the  per- 
fection it  did  abroad  ;  that  not  only  the  same 
technical  mastery  has  never  been  forthcom- 

6 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH    BINDINGS 

ing,  but  that  also  the  inventiveness  to  pro- 
duce a  national  style  has  not  as  yet  arisen.  For 
long  periods  we  were  content  to  assimilate 
the  designs  of  our  neighbours  as  they  arose 
one  after  the  other  ;  hardly,  indeed,  to  assim- 
ilate, rather  to  reproduce  them  for  our  own 
needs,  and  that  for  the  most  part  slavishly, 
and  with  no  new  elements. 

But  every  now  and  again  we  come  across 
some  volume  that  shows  on  the  part  of  the 
workman  a  distinct  effort  to  get  rid  of  imi- 
tation and  attempt  a  new  style.  A  dis- 
covery of  this  sort  should  be  followed  up  by 
careful  observation  in  any  library  there  may 
be  at  hand  of  books  of  the  same  date  or 
place  of  publication ;  and  in  this  way  we 
may,  perhaps,  one  day  attain  to  something 
like  a  connected  account  of  the  art  in  our 
own  country. 

The  two  types  that  claim  attention  in 
this  paper  have  hardly  been  realized  as  yet, 
and  there  is  but  little  information  to  be 
given  about  them.  We  may,  perhaps,  dis- 
miss the  English  one  first   as  offering  even 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

less  material  for  information  than  the  Scot- 
tish, and  presenting  less  variety  in  the  indi- 


BIBLE    WITH    INLAID    BINDING 


vidual  specimens.  It  is  also  earlier  in  date. 
All  we  really  know  about  this  English  inlaid 
work,  of  which  two  examples  are  here  re- 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH    BINDINGS 

produced,  is  that  it  is  to  be  found  on  Bibles, 
Prayer  Books,  and  the  like,  at  the  end  of 
the  seventeenth   century  and  the  beginning 


A    SCOTTISH    BINDING    IN    BLUE    MOROCCO 


of  the  last  century.  The  colour  of  the  cover 
is  a  dark-blue  and  the  inlays  are  of  red  and 
citron.  Many  of  these  books  have  also  sil- 
ver clasps,  and  corners  delicately  engraved 
with  some  slight  ornament  of  the  period, 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

and  some  have  decorated  edges — mostly  a 
flower  painted  underneath  the  gold.  The 
tools  used  for  the  decoration  are  many  of 
them  in  outline,  bordering  an  inlay  of 
the  same  shape,  generally  a  conventional 
flower.  The  parts  inlaid,  besides  these  small 
flowers,  are,  generally  speaking,  the  corners 
and  centre  of  a  panel,  upon  which  are 
worked  very  freely,  and  without  regard  to 
neatness  of  joining,  certain  well  recognized 
ornaments  that  formed  the  stock-in-trade  of 
the  ordinary  binder  of  the  time.  The  tool- 
ing is  rough,  and  the  beauty  of  the  book 
depends  more  on  the  general  effect  of  col- 
our and  the  massing  of  design  than  on  the 
execution  of  the  pattern  itself. 

Nevertheless,  the  sprays  that  fill  up  the 
spaces  between  the  inlays  are  often  extremely 
graceful,  and  the  details  composing  them 
are  very  delicate,  the  tools  being  well  de- 
signed and  finely  cut. 

Altogether,  these  bindings  have  a  great 
attractiveness,  perhaps  the  greater  for  their 
want  of  elaborate  finish.     They  are  happily 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH     BINDINGS 

inspired,  and  most  distinctly  national,  which 
is  a  point  well  worthy  of  emphasis.  The 
larger  of  the  two  illustrations  is  that  of  a 
Bible  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  C.  E.  H. 
Chadwyck  Healy,  printed  at  Cambridge  in 
1673.  It  is  a  large  quarto,  in  excellent  pre- 
servation, having  the  painted  edges  before 
mentioned,  and  silver  clasps  and  corners. 

The  other  is  also  a  Bible,  printed  at  Lon- 
don in  1673,  and  bought  by  Mr.  Quaritch 
from  the  library  of  the  late  Mr.  Lawrence. 
Of  course  all  the  beauty  of  colour  is  lost  in 
the  illustrations,  and  for  that  reason  it  is 
not  worth  while  to  give  more  than  two 
reproductions.  The  number  of  these  books 
to  be  met  with  is  not  very  large,  but  many 
a  family  that  dates  back  a  couple  of  hun- 
dred years  probably  has  some  one  among  its 
treasures,  kept  with  the  fans  and  laces,  the 
charms,  and  chatelaines,  and  knicknacks  of 
its  feminine  ancestors.  One  such  I  lately 
came  across  almost  unknown  to  its  posses- 
sor, in  which  were  entered,  after  the  do- 
mestic  custom  of  that  day,  the  names   and 

i] 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

dates  of  all  the  family  for  years  in  quaint 
old  phraseology  that  added  greatly  to  the 
interest  of  what  was  one  of  the  best  speci- 
mens of  this  kind  of  binding.  It  was  a 
type  that  was  probably  in  the  hands  of  only 
a  few  binders,  and  very  likely  almost  re- 
served for  the  Bibles  and  Prayer  Books  that 
formed  gift  books. 

It  is  not  until  the  last  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  that  we  find  any  important 
bindings  obviously  of  Scottish  workman- 
ship. The  annals  of  Scottish  printing  are 
searched  in  vain  for  any  record  of  binders. 
Printing  progressed  but  slowly  in  the  coun- 
try. The  first  press  was  established  in  1507 
by  patent  of  King  James  IV,  granted  to  two 
citizens  of  the  town  of  Edinburgh  named 
Walter  Chepman  and  Andrew  Myllar. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  it  was  introduced 
from  France,  Myllar  having  at  one  time 
been  a  bookseller  importing  books  from 
abroad,  and  having  apparently  some  practi- 
cal knowledge  of  printing  obtained  on  the 
Continent. 

12 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH    BINDINGS 

The    license     begins    in     the    following 
quaint   way  :     "  Wit  ye  that  foisamekill  as 


A    SCOTTISH     BINDING    IN    RED    MOROCCO 

our  lovittis  servitous  Walter  Chepman 
and  Andrew  Myllar  burgesses  of  our  burgh 
of  Edinburgh,   has  at  our  instance  and   re- 

13 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

quest,  for  our  plesour,  the  honour  and  proffit 
of  our  Realme  and  Liegis,  takin  on  thame 
to  furnis  and  bring  hame  ane  prent,  with 
all  stuff  belangand  tharto  and  expert  men  to 
use  the  sayme  for  imprenting  within  our 
Realme  of  the  bukis  of  our  Lawis,  actis  of 
Parliament  croniclis,  mess  bukis,"  etc.,  etc. 
These  adventurous  citizens  are  further  guar- 
anteed from  loss  by  a  monopoly  of  printing 
certain  books,  and  last,  but  by  no  means 
least,  among  such  books  the  liturgical  works 
of  William,  Bishop  of  Aberdeen.  Indeed,  it 
is  thought  by  some  that  the  object  and  ori- 
gin of  the  introduction  of  printing  to  Scot- 
land was  not  so  much  to  procure  printed 
books  as  to  enable  this  bishop,  who  had 
great  influence  over  the  king,  to  exclude 
the  books  of  Salisbury  use,  and  impose  his 
own  breviary,  called  the  Aberdeen  breviary, 
upon  the  people. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  "  prent  and 
expert  men"  were  imported  from  France, 
as  this  has  been  decided  from  the  similarity 
of  the  type  and  wood  blocks  used  by  Myllar 

14 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH    BINDINGS 

with  those  in  French  books  of  the  period. 
The  division  of  the  partnership  has  been 
made  obvious  from  the  documents  of  the 
time.  Chepman  was  a  general  merchant 
who  undertook  miscellaneous  commercial 
transactions,  and  was  in  favour  both  with 
James  IV  and  James  V.  The  idea  of  the 
new  venture  was  probably  suggested  by  him 
as  well  as  financed  by  his  money,  and 
Myllar,  as  more  or  less  of  an  expert  versed 
in  the  craft,  undertook  the  practical  leader- 
ship of  the  concern. 

I  have  said  that  the  French  origin  of  the 
Scottish  development  has  been  proved  from 
the  likeness  between  the  woodcuts  used  there 
and  those  in  contemporary  use  on  the  Con- 
tinent. Chepman,  like  most  of  the  early 
printers,  had  a  device,  and  this  was  in  fact  a 
modification  of  the  one  known  to  lovers  of 
early-printed  books  as  that  of  Pigouchet. 
Myllar's  was  a  capital  example  of  the  pun- 
ning or  parlant  stamp.  A  miller  carries  a 
sack  of  corn  on  his  back  up  a  ladder  to  the 
windmill ;  the  stem  of  the  mill   supports  a 

*5 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

shield  with  the  monogram,  while  the  name 
is  in  bold   Gothic  letters  along  the  bottom 


A    SCOTTISH    BINDING    IN    BLUE    MOROCCO 

of  the  device.  Two  small  shields  at  the 
top  corners  are  charged  with  three  fleurs- 
de-lys.      Many  examples  of  these   punning 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH    BINDINGS 

stamps  may  be  found  on  early  French  bind- 
ings, when  books  were  bound  in  brown  leath- 
er and  impressed  by  a  block  without  gold. 
But  the  interesting  point  about  this  parti- 
cular device  of  Myllar's  is  that,  though 
there  is  no  printed  book  extant  by  him 
which  has  it  impressed  on  the  binding,  there 
are  two  book-covers  in  the  Douce  collec- 
tion of  the  Bodleian  Library  at  Oxford, 
which  have  the  same  device  with  the  name 
of  Jehan  Moulin.  There  are  several  exam- 
ples of  Moulin  binding  in  existence,  and  his 
stamp  is  one  of  the  finest  and  most  decora- 
tive of  the  kind. 

It  was  natural  that  certain  of  these  devices, 
or  parts  of  them,  should  appear  in  stamps  on 
the  leather  covers  in  which  books  from  the 
early  presses  were  mostly  issued.  The  print- 
ing, binding  and  bookselling  departments 
were  not  unusually  combined  in  one,  so  that 
it  frequently  happened  that  the  trade-mark 
was  impressed  as  a  panel  stamp  as  above  de- 
scribed. The  French  panel  stamps  far  ex- 
celled all  others  in  beauty  as  well  as  fre- 

17 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

quency,  and  a  collection  of  them  would  go 
a  long  way  to  show  the  especial  recognition 
of  the  French  of  the  appropriate  use  of  or- 
nament to  book-covers,  and  its  adaptation  to 
the  limited  space  which  they  had  to  decor- 
ate. 

It  is,  however,  in  vain  that  we  look  for 
any  such  distinctive  marks  of  the  binder  in 
Scotland,  even  at  the  early  period  when 
signed  bindings  were  not  infrequent  abroad. 
The  whole  period  is  destitute  of  any  record. 
Some  indication  may  be  found  occasionally 
from  very  unexpected  sources,  and  it  is  to 
be  hoped  that  now  attention  has  been 
directed  to  the  matter,  such  sources  as  the 
one  I  am  about  to  mention  may  prove  more 
fruitful  of  results  in  the  future.  There  is  a 
tombstone  in  Elgin  Cathedral  of  William 
Lyel,  "  subdicanus  ecclesie  moraviensis,,, 
who  died  in  1504.  The  stone  is  long  and 
narrow,  having  a  cross  in  the  centre,  a  cup 
on  one  side  of  the  stem  of  the  cross,  and  a 
book  in  the  corresponding  space  to  the  right. 
The  inscription  runs  in  a  border  all  round, 

18 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH     BINDINGS 

and  is  to  this  effect :   "  Hie  jacet  venerabilis 
vir  magister  vilelmus  lyel  quonda  subdecanus 


SCOTCH    BINDING    IN    BLUE    MOROCCO 


ecclesie  moravien.  q.  obiit — die  mes — Anno 
diii  Mcc'ccc.  iiiv."  A  rubbing  of  the  book 
shows  that  it  probably  represents  a  fine 
binding  of  the  time,   and  the  design   con- 


19 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

sists  of  a  diaper  of  diamond-shaped  lozenges 
set  between  a  heavy  three-lined  border,  and 
on  the  fore-edge  is  a  clasp.  The  rubbing 
measures  10^    inches  by  6  inches. 

The  early  Italian  pictures,  with  their  Ma- 
donnas and  Apostles,  who  frequently  hold  in 
their  hands  some  rare  and  costly  missal,  give 
us  not  infrequently  a  very  clear  idea  of  the 
contemporary  bindings,  jeweled  and  other- 
wise enriched,  which  were  placed  at  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Church  and  mostly  executed 
within  conventual  walls.  In  the  same  way 
it  is  not  impossible  that  from  time  to  time 
the  student  of  Scottish  archaeology  may  come 
upon  some  instances  of  the  applied  arts 
which  will  prove  important  for  the  early 
history  of  Scottish  binding. 

As  for  the  written  records,  if  not  quite  so 
scanty,  they  are  not  any  more  instructive. 
The  following  specimens  of  what  we  get  in 
this  way  are  indicative  of  all  the  documen- 
tary evidence  that  is  to  be  had  up  to  this 
date.  In  1539  the  King's  treasurer  pays 
David  Chepman,  son  of  Walter,  the  printer, 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH    BINDINGS 

ten  shilllings  Scots,  "  for  binding  and  laying 
about  with  gold  the  queen's  matin  buke." 
In  the  accounts  of  Aberdeen  University  we 
find :  "  Item  to  James  Miller,  bookbinder, 
for  binding  for  Mr.  Jon  Paterson  Mr.  John 
Meingyes  Sermons  aforesaid,  441b.  2s.' ' 
And  again — "  Item  to  Peter  Thomson  for 
cutting  7m,  being  3  quares,  6s." 

It  was  not  till  the  seventeenth  century 
that  printing  really  spread  to  the  provinces 
of  Scotland.  Aberdeen  did  not  receive  a 
press  till  1622,  when  Edward  Raban,  an 
Englishman  by  birth,  came  north  to  exe- 
cute his  craft,  and  after  staying  a  short  time 
in  Edinburgh,  was  made  printer  to  the  Uni- 
versity of  St.  Andrews.  He  had  a  great 
friendship  with  Melvill,  the  bookseller  of 
Aberdeen,  for  whom  he  printed,  and  in 
1643  Raban  is  mentioned  as  having  a  book- 
selling as  well  as  a  printing  business.  Now 
Melvill  died  in  that  same  year,  and  it  is 
probable  that  the  bookselling  shop  was 
Melvill's  business  that  Raban  took  over  on  his 
death.      One  would  like  to  discover  some 


BOOKBINDERS    AND     THEIR     CRAFT 

bindings  that  emanated  from  this  well-au- 
thenticated bookshop.  It  is  possible  that  the 
libraries  of  Scotland^the  University  Li- 
brary at  Glasgow  that  contains  the  Hunter- 
ian  collection;  the  Edinburgh  University 
Library,  to  which  the  entire  collection  of 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden  was  bequeathed; 
the  Advocate's  Library,  and  the  Signet  Li- 
brary in  the  same  town,  may  contain  much 
that  is  valuable  in  this  and  other  directions. 
The  more  remote  collections,  too,  not  yet 
explored,  from  this  point  of  view,  may  some 
day  yield  unexpected  treasures.  But  such 
researches  as  have  come  within  my  power 
have  not  resulted  in  the  identification  of 
any  ornate  Scotch  binding  earlier  than  the 
last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

Since  the  dispersal  of  the  private  libraries 
of  Dr.  Laing,  Mr.  Whiteford  Mackenzie, 
Mr.  James  Maidment,  and  the  late  Sir  W. 
Fettes  Douglas,  who  is  said  to  have  had  a 
fine  collection  of  old  Scotch  bindings,  it  is 
not  likely  that  any  considerable  number  are 
to  be  found  in  a  single  owner's  possession. 

22 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH     BINDINGS 


A    SCOTTISH    BINDING    IN    RED    MOROCCO 


There  were  several  interesting  examples 
exhibited  at  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club, 
three  of  which  are  figured  in  their  illustrated 
catalogue. 

I  think  I  can  trace  two  fairly  distinct 
types  of  Scotch  binding  during  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  The  examples  here  given 
are  all  from  Edinburgh   printed  books,  and 

23 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

with  one  exception  are  all  in  the  library  of 
the  British  Museum ;  and  both  types  appear 
to  be  fairly  contemporaneous,  though  I  shall 
begin  with  the  one  that  seems  to  be  the 
earlier  of  the  two,  as  it  is  found  on  the  one 
book  having  a  date  of  the  previous  century. 
This  is  the  "  Parfait  Mareschal  or  Compleat 
Farrier,"  printed  at  Edinburgh  in  1696.  It 
is  a  fine  specimen  of  a  small  folio  measur- 
ing 1  2  inches  by  7^  inches,  bound  in  dark 
blue  morocco,  and  has  a  red  doublure.  It 
will  be  seen  from  the  illustration  that  the 
design  is  put  together  most  ingeniously. 
The  weak  part  is  the  framework  of  the  cen- 
tre panel,  which  is  made  by  means  of  a 
wide  ornamental  roll  worked  roughly  enough 
at  the  angles.  The  spaces  marked  out  by 
gouges  which  border  the  panel  inside  and 
out,  and  likewise  the  sides  of  the  covers  are 
very  effectively  filled  in  with  dots,  and  the 
branch  work  in  the  centre  and  at  the  cor- 
ners is  decidedly  graceful.  The  design  is, 
on  the  whole,  well  conceived  with  the  ex- 
ception above  mentioned,  and  the  general 


ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH    BINDINGS 

effect  is  well-balanced  and  satisfying  to  the 
eye. 

The  second  example  is  also  a  small  folio 
in  red  morocco,  a  "  History  of  the  Suffer- 
ings of  the  Church  of  Scotland  from  the 
Restoration  to  the  Revolution,"  printed  at 
Edinburgh  in  1722.  The  third  is  a  "His- 
tory of  the  Church  under  the  Old  Testa- 
ment," Edinburgh,  1730,  a  folio  in  blue 
morocco.  The  fourth  is  a  Psalter  belong- 
ing to  Mr.  John  Wordie  of  Glasgow,  an  oc- 
tavo in  blue  morocco,  which  was  the  colour 
most  used  at  that  period. 

These  four  specimens  are  all  different,  but 
have  at  the  same  time  a  marked  similarity 
that  proves  conclusively,  I  think,  that  there 
was  a  distinct  type  of  Scottish  binding  dur- 
ing this  period. 

The  other  type  is  one  that  has  always  in 
the  centre  a  circular  ornament  with  radiating 
lines,  and  at  the  angles  conventional  branch 
work,  consisting  mostly,  of  palm  sprays. 
The  examples  of  Scotch  binding  exhi- 
bited at  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club  were 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

of  this  character,  the  best  specimen  being 
the  "  Disputatio  Juridica,"  Edinburgh,  1730, 
4to,  a  presentation  copy  to  Lord  Lauderdale, 
to  whom  the  "  Disputatio "  is  dedicated. 
This  book  was  lent  by  Mr.  R.  T.  Hamilton 
Bruce,  and  is  figured  in  the  catalogue. 

The  specimen  here  given  is  not  a  very  in- 
teresting one,  but  presents  clearly  enough 
the  type  in  all  its  features.  The  book  is 
entitled  "  Eloge  de  la  ville  d'Edinbourg  di- 
vise  en  quatre  chants  par  le  sieur  de  Forbes," 
a  Edinbourg,  1752,  i2mo.  It  is  bound  in 
red  morocco,  and,  like  all  the  others  re- 
presented, has  that  German  embossed  gilt 
paper  for  "end  papers"  which  came  over 
here  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 


CHARACTERISTICS  AND  PECULIARITIES 

OF 
ROGER  PAYNE,  BINDER 


II 


CHARACTERISTICS  AND  PECULIARITIES 
OF  ROGER  PAYNE,  BINDER 

T  the  outset  of  this  account  of 
Roger  Payne  and  his  bind- 
ings, I  want  to  state  my  obj  ect 
in  drawing  attention  to  him 
at  this  moment,  and  to  em- 
phasize the  special  interest  that  I  consider  his 
work  to  have.  Most  people  who  care  suffi- 
ciently for  bookbinding  to  know  anything 
of  Roger  Payne  are  probably  a  little  tired 
by  this  time  of  the  story  of  his  eccentric  in- 
dividuality, his  verses  in  praise  of  drink,  and 
the  quaint  elaborateness  of  his  bills,  all  of 
which,  ever  since  the  days  of  Dibdin,  have 
been  mentioned  as  the  main  points  of  inter- 
est connected  with  his  history.      But  to  my 


29 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

mind  the  chief  thing  that  dissociates  him 
from  other  members  of  his  craft — with  the 
exception  of  his  style  of  ornamentation,  which 
was  very  original — is  that  he  did  the  whole 
of  his  work  himself,  and  I  know  of  no  other 
binder  of  whom  this  can  be  said. 

People  who  are  even  but  slightly  acquainted 
with  the  work  of  a  binder's  shop  know  that 
it  is  divided  into  three  main  departments — 
that  books  are  sewn  and  headbanded  by  wo- 
men, put  into  boards,  cut  and  covered  by  the 
"forwarder,"  and  ornamented  by  the  "fin- 
isher." The  result  is  that  personality  in  the 
work  is  lost.  There  may  be  a  certain  sim- 
ilarity of  appearance  in  the  books  turned  out 
by  a  special  binder,  because  one  or  more 
styles  will  generally  prevail  in  any  given 
shop,  but  of  individuality  in  the  get-up  of 
the  several  books  there  is  none.  Nor  can 
this  possibly  be  made  a  matter  of  reproach 
in  the  ordinary  run  of  work ;  prices  would 
not  admit  of  its  being  done  on  any  other 
principle  than  that  of  subdivision  of  labour. 
But  the  fact  remains  that  a  book  carried  out 

30 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER    PAYNE 


"  LE    FACECIEUX 


from  beginning  to  end  by  a  craftsman  intel- 
ligently interested  in  his  trade,  wholly  re- 
sponsible for  the  success  of  his  work,  and 
with  sufficient  artistic  feeling  to  make  the 
commercial  point  of  view  a  secondary  one, 

31 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

will  have  a  personal  character  about  it  that 
one  which  has  passed  through  many  hands 
will  never  acquire. 

It  is  to  the  character  in  Roger  Payne's 
work  that  I  want  to  direct  the  attention  of 
lovers  of  binding.  Not  that  this  can  possi- 
bly be  conveyed  by  illustrations — those  will 
give  the  ornamental  detail,  but  little  else.  I 
doubt,  however,  if  anyone  who  takes  half  a 
dozen  of  Roger  Payne's  bindings  and  puts 
them  side  by  side  with  a  similar  number  of 
books  bound  by  the  best  French  and  English 
binders,  will  be  long  in  feeling  that,  though 
they  may  be  lacking  in  technical  finish,  they 
have  yet  an  individuality  all  their  own. 

Before  proceeding  to  a  detailed  apprecia- 
tion of  his  work,  a  brief  sketch  of  Payne's 
life  may  be  given.  He  was  born  in  Wind- 
sor Forest  in  1739,  and  was  first  employed 
by  Pote,  the  well-known  Eton  bookseller. 
He  then  went  to  London,  and  served  a  short 
time  with  Thomas  Osborne,  an  antiquarian 
bookseller  in  Gray's  Inn.  Dibdin  says  Tom 
Osborne  was  the  most  celebrated  bookseller 

32 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER     PAYNE 

of  his  day,  and  carried  on  a  successful  trade 
from  the  year  1738  to  1768.  He  appears  at  all 


IN    THE    COLLECTION    OF    ALFRED    HUTH,   ESCL- 

events  to  have  purchased  the  libraries  of  the 
most  eminent  collectors  of  the  time,  for  he 
gave  ^13,000  for  the   Harleian  collection, 

33 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

and  employed  Dr.  Johnson  to  write  the  Pre- 
face to  an  account  of  it  published  in  four 
volumes  and  entitled  "  Catalogus  Bibliothecae 
Harleianae,"  etc.  Osborne  was  so  rough  and 
overbearing  in  his  manners  that  Boswell  de- 
clares Johnson  once  knocked  him  down  with 
a  folio  and  put  his  foot  upon  his  neck.  He 
was  evidently  not  popular,  being  a  great  con- 
trast in  this  respect  to  his  contemporary, 
"  honest  Tom  Payne,"  of  whom  T.  G. 
Mathias  speaks  so  appreciatively  in  the  "  Pur- 
suits of  Literature."  Anyway  he  had  not  the 
wit  to  know  Roger  Payne  for  a  genius,  or  if 
he  had  the  wit  he  had  not  the  temper  to  keep 
him  in  his  employment.  They  could  not 
agree,  and  Roger  then  made  the  acquaintance 
of  his  namesake  above-mentioned — Thomas 
Payne,  the  popular  leading  bookseller  of  the 
time,  whose  shop  in  the  shape  of  an  I  at 
the  Mews  Gate  was  a  sort  of  literary  coffee- 
house between  1750  and  1790.  His  brother 
Oliver,  with  whom  he  started  in  business,  is 
said  to  have  originated  the  idea  and  practice 
of  printing  catalogues.      Thomas  was  much 

34 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER    PAYNE 

respected  by  all  the  authors  and  book-collect- 
ors of  his  time,  and  is  thus  described  in  Nich- 
ols's "  Literary  Anecdotes  "  :  "  Warm  in  his 
friendships  as  in  his  politicks,  a  convivial, 
cheerful  companion,  and  unalterable  in  the 
cut  and  colour  of  his  coat,  he  uniformly  pur- 
sued one  great  object,  fair  dealing,  and  will 
survive  in  the  list  of  booksellers  the  most 
eminent  for  being  adventurous  and  scientific, 
by  the  name  of  honest  Tom  Payne."  His 
lasting  friendship  with  Roger  is  not  the  least 
of  the  tributes  to  his  kindness  and  generosity. 
He  set  him  up  in  business  near  Leicester 
Square  somewhere  between  1766  and  1770. 
The  portrait  which  Thomas  Payne  had 
made  of  Roger  for  himself — it  is  said  after 
his  death — shows  him  in  this  garret,  where 
he  lived  and  worked.  "  His  appearance," 
said  Dibdin,  "bespoke  either  squalid  wretch- 
edness or  a  foolish  and  fierce  indifference  to 
the  received  opinions  of  mankind.  His 
hair  was  unkempt,  his  attire  wretched  ;  and 
the  interior  of  his  workshop — where,  like 
the  Turk,  he  would  '  bear  no  brother  near 

35 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

his  throne  ' — harmonized  but  too  justly  with 
the    general  character  of  its  owner.      With 


IN    THE    BRITISH     MUSEUM.        CRACHERODE    BEQUEST 

the  greatest  possible  display  of  humility  he 
quite  united   the  spirit  of  quixotic  indepen- 

36 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER    PAYNE 

dence.  Such  a  compound — such  a  motley 
union — was  probably  never  before  concen- 
trated in  one  and  the  same  individual." 

Richard  Weir,  whose  wife  attained  a  great 
reputation  in  the  mending  and  restoration 
of  books,  was  his  partner  toward  the  end  of 
his  life.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Weir  had  succeeded 
Derome  in  1774  in  binding  and  repairing 
the  library  of  Count  Macarthy  at  Tou- 
louse, and  on  their  return  to  England  joined 
Paine,  but  both  men  being  intemperate,  the 
business  rapidly  deteriorated,  until  they  were 
finally  taken  into  the  employment  of  John 
Mackinlay,  the  binder. 

The  most  important  event  in  Payne's 
life  was  undoubtedly  his  introduction  to 
Lord  Spencer.  How  this  came  about  we 
do  not  know  exactly,  but  it  was  most  prob- 
ably through  his  friend  and  namesake  the 
bookseller.  Dibdin  relates  that  the  Coun- 
tess Spencer's  lady's  maid  remarked  on  see- 
ing Payne,  whose  first  visit  to  the  Earl  was 
made  apparently  while  they  were  dressing 
for    court :      "  Oh    Dieu  !    mais,   comment 

37 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

done,  est-ce  que  e'est  ainsi  qu' on  se  presente 
dans  ce  pays-ci  dans  un  cabinet  de  toilette  ?" 
This  was  the  beginning  of  much  work  for 
the  Althorp  Library;  and  other  well-known 
patrons  were  Dr.  Moseley,  who  is  supposed 
to  have  had  some  of  his  books  bound  in 
return  for  medical  advice,  and  Colonel  Stan- 
ley, for  whom  Payne  did  some  excellent 
specimens. 

The  leather  that  he  worked  in  was  red 
or  blue  straight-grain  morocco  or  a  smooth 
olive  morocco,  which  he  liked  best,  and 
which  he  called  "  Venetian  "  in  his  bills, 
probably  from  its  similarity  to  the  color 
used  by  Aldus.  Unfortunately  for  durabil- 
ity, a  good  deal  of  his  work  was  also  done 
in  Russia  leather.  His  choice  of  lining  pa- 
pers was  a  great  blot  on  the  appearance  of 
his  books ;  they  were  never  marbled,  but 
plain  coloured,  chiefly  purple  or  buff,  which 
harmonized  ill  with  his  leathers,  and  being 
coarse  of  texture,  they  often  became  unpleas- 
antly spotted. 

His  books  were  well  stitched  and  head- 
38 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER    PAYNE 

banded,  and  the  criticism  frequently  passed 
that  he  used  too  thin  boards  is  not  borne 
out  by  an  inspection  of  those  in  the  British 
Museum.  He  had  a  habit  of  lining  the 
backs  with  Russia  leather,  which,  in  the  case 
of  the  smaller  size  books,  was  very  unfor- 
tunate, for  it  prevented  them  from  opening 
freely.  His  leather  joints  were  very  clumsy, 
and  the  joints  of  his  books  as  a  whole  were 
lacking  in  technical  finish.  Very  few  doub- 
lures  are  to  be  found,  and  he  had  no  taste  for 
the  elaborateness  of  contemporary  French 
work.  I  have  mentioned  the  main  defects 
of  Payne's  work;  when  we  come  to  its  dec- 
oration we  are  at  once  struck  by  the  origi- 
nality displayed  in  the  lay-out  of  the  design 
as  compared  with  the  work  of  previous 
English  binders,  and  the  great  taste  shown 
in  the  balance  and  adjustment  of  the  detail. 
Payne  prided  himself  upon  what  he  consid- 
ered the  appropriateness  of  his  ornament, 
but  luckily  its  emblematic  character  does 
not  strike  one  at  first  sight ;  that  he  should 
put   a   design  of  vine  leaves   on  one  book 

39 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

because  its  title  was  "  Rusticum,"  or  that 
another  should  have  a  border  of  "  antique 
shields  and  crescents  "  because  they  were  in 
the  headpiece  to  the  preface  of  the  book,  is 
not  a  use  of  emblems  that  anyone  can  quar- 
rel with.  His  ornamentation  was  never 
elaborate.  His  sides  are  often  plain,  una- 
dorned but  with  a  single  line  or  with  cor- 
ners made  of  a  few  flowers  and  leaves,  the 
spaces  between  being  filled  with  circles  and 
dots.  When  the  sides  are  plain,  the  backs 
are  generally  fully  gilt,  with  a  similar  tra- 
cery of  leaves  and  flowers  studded  with  dots, 
stars  and  circlets.  When  the  inside  joints 
and  border  are  tooled  the  outside  is  mostly 
left  quite  plain.  In  many  cases  the  titles 
are  made  to  decorate  more  than  one  com- 
partment of  the  back,  the  tooling  occurring 
only  on  the  top  and  bottom  spaces.  This  tool- 
ing is  very  often  without  gold;  indeed,  Payne 
was  very  fond  of  blind  work,  and  many 
specimens  of  it  may  be  seen  at  the  British 
Museum.  On  blue  and  red  moroccos  it 
was    not     effective,    but    on    diced    Russia 

4o 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER     PAYNE 


f©^* 

*&£** 


-*&£& 


$ 

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** 

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r*llr 

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P      ^"^Ife 

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Mi 

BIBLE,  BOUND  FOR  TOM  PAYNE 


leather,  and  especially  in  combination  with 
a  certain  amount  of  gold,  the  effect  is  ex- 
tremely pleasing. 

He  did  not  have  very  many  tools,  arid  is 
said  to  have  himself  made  some  of  them  in 


41 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

iron — presumably  the  very  simple  ones,  stars, 
dots,  and  rings,  which  he  had  in  great 
variety,  for  some  of  the  others  are  of  such 
delicacy  that  they  indicate  the  practised  hand 
of  the  tool  cutter.  It  may  be  said  in  pass- 
ing that  it  is  very  likely  the  older  binders 
employed  iron  for  their  tools  instead  of  the 
soft  brass  now  in  use,  and  the  French  word 
for  them — "fers" — would  seem  to  support 
this  view. 

Many  of  Payne's  flower-foliage  tools  were 
decidedly  original,  though  he  may  possibly 
have  been  indebted  to  Mearne  and  the  Eng- 
lish binders  of  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  and  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  for 
some  of  them.  They  are  floral  without  being 
naturalistic,  sufficiently  conventionalized  for 
design,  and  very  simply  arranged  in  the  pat- 
tern they  compose.  In  fact,  the  special  art- 
istic feeling  of  his  ornamentation  consists  in 
the  skilful  way  in  which  he  made  dots — or 
"studded  work,"  as  he  called  it — strengthen 
or  balance  the  design  so  that  the  plan  of 
arrangement  and  the  combination  of  the  in- 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER     PAYNE 


|^H38S-^H^ 


-SSSHNM& 


IN    THE    BRITISH    MUSEUM.        CRACHERODE    BEQUEST 


dividual  tools  does  not  catch  the  eye,  and  is 
in  fact  hidden  by  the  richness  of  the  studded 
effect.      His  ornamentation  indeed,  flowing 

43 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

and  graceful  as  it  is  in  stem  and  flower,  of- 
fers a  striking  contrast  to  the  style  that  pre- 
ceded it  in  England,  known  as  the  Harleian, 
which  was  extremely  stiff  and  formal,  and 
allowed  of  no  appearance  of  growth  or  de- 
velopment in  the  arrangement  of  its  parts. 

Somehow  the  light  and  graceful  charac- 
ter of  his  work  seems  especially  suitable  to 
the  straight-grain  morocco  then  in  fashion. 
A  "  Roger  Payne  "  style  now  forms  one  of 
the  commonplaces  of  the  ordinary  binder's 
stock  in  trade,  but  carried  out  on  the  solid 
levant  morocco  in  fashion  has  nothing  like 
the  same  attractiveness.  Payne  wisely  ad- 
hered to  the  style  that  he  practically  in- 
vented, and  there  are  no  examples  of  any  at- 
tempt to  compete  in  the  reproduction  of  old 
models.  There  is  not  perhaps  very  much 
scope  in  his  designs,  and  yet  the  variation  is 
considerable  considering  the  few  tools  he 
employed.  These  he  used  in  fresh  com- 
binations with  great  inventiveness  and  un- 
failing taste,  getting  much  richness  of  effect 
by  the  simple  device  of  dots.      In  fact,  he 

44 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER    PAYNE 

thoroughly  understood  the  art  of  getting  ef- 
fect by  simplicity  rather  than  by  elaboration 
of  ornament. 

His  career  lasted  between  thirty  and  forty 
years,  beginning  about  1770,  during  which 
time,  notwithstanding  the  irregularity  of  his 
habits,  he  was  very  constantly  successful. 
He  certainly  met  with  great  appreciation 
during  his  lifetime,  and  had  it  not  been  for 
his  eccentric  independence,  he  would  un- 
doubtedly have  left  behind  him  a  more  ex- 
tensive and  finer  record  of  his  skill.  For 
Lord  Spencer  he  worked  continuously,  and 
did  many  fine  specimens  for  the  Duke  of 
Hamilton,  Mr.  Wodhull,  Mr.  Cracherode, 
Dr.  Moseley,  Colonel  Stanley  and  other  col- 
lectors. 

The  Roger  Payne  bindings  in  the  British 
Museum  nearly  all  belong  to  the  collection 
bequeathed  to  it  by  Mr.  Clayton  Mordaunt 
Cracherode,  who  was  born  in  1730  and 
died  in  1799.  He  held  the  curacy  of  Bin- 
sey,  near  Oxford,  for  a  long  time,  but  on 
the  death  of  his  father  in  1773  ^e  inherited 

45 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

a  large  fortune,  and  henceforth  lived  as  a 
recluse  among  his  literary  treasures.  He  had 
no  curiosity  about  anything  else,  and  never 
travelled  except  between  London  and  Ox- 
ford. In  1784  he  was  elected  a  Trustee  of 
the  British  Museum.  Every  day  for  many 
years  he  walked  to  the  shop  of  Elmsly,  a 
bookseller  in  the  Strand,  and  thence  to  Tom 
Payne's,  and  never  returned  without  pur- 
chases. 

To  return  to  Roger  Payne.  His  chef 
d'ceuvre  is  supposed  to  be  the  "  /Eschylus  " 
done  for  Lord  Spencer,  and  now  available  to 
the  public  through  the  generosity  of  Mrs. 
Rylands,  of  Manchester.  Another  very 
elaborate  and  fine  specimen  of  his  work  is  a 
copy  of  the  Bible  printed  at  Edinburgh  in 
171 5,  and  now  in  the  possession  of  one  of 
the  many  New  York  collectors.  It  is  fig- 
ured in  the  little  volume  on  Payne  issued  to 
his  friends  by  Mr.  W.  L.  Andrews,  of  New 
York,  a  great  admirer  of  the  binder.  This 
Bible  has  an  additional  interest  as  having 
been    bound    for    his    friend    and     patron, 

46 


IN    THE    BRITISH    MUSEUM 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER    PAYNE 

Thomas  Payne,  whose  initials  appear  on  the 
sides.  The  original  bill  is  inserted,  in  which 
Roger  says :  "  The  outsides  finished  in  the 
richest  and  most  elegant  taste,  richer  and 
more  exact  than  any  book  that  I  have  ever 
bound."  The  charge  for  binding  was  £i 
1 8s.;  for  mending  and  cleaning,  3s.  6d. — a 
total  of  £2  is.  6d.  It  is  bound  in  blue 
morocco  with  a  deep  border  and  studded 
corners,  and  has  also  a  panel  of  graceful  pro- 
portions. The  Grolier  Club  selected  it  for 
reproduction  for  the  covers  of  their  first 
publication,  "The  Decree  of  the  Starre- 
Chamber,"  the  letters  G.  C.  being  substit- 
uted for  T.  P.  in  the  tracery  on  the  sides. 

Payne's  bills,  in  which  he  describes  with 
quaint  language  and  in  great  detail,  his  work 
on  the  particular  book,  have  always  been 
considered  a  curiosity.  At  the  sale  of  Dr. 
Moseley's  library  in  1  8 1 5  several  of  these 
were  found.  Many  of  these  bills  have  been 
reproduced,  but  as  a  specimen  I  will  take 
one  not  hitherto  published,  except  in  the 
little   book  by  Mr.  Andrews    above    men- 

49 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 


tioned.  It  was  for  binding  a  copy  of  Lilly's 
"  Christian  Astrology/'  now  in  the  Library 
of  the  Grolier  Club  : 

u  Bound  in  the  very  best  manner,  sewed  in  the  very 
best  and  most  honest  manner  on  Bands,  outside.  The 
Book  being  very  thick,  it  required  the  greater  care  in 
sewing  to  make  it  easy  and  not  fail. 

"  It  is  absolutely  a  very  Extra  Bound  Book.  I  hope 
to  be  forgiven  in  saying  so  and  unmatchable.  Velum 
Headbands,  so  as  not  to  break  like  paper  rold  up  Head- 
bands. 


The  greatest  care  and  method  taken 
to  make  this  Book  as  good  a  Copy 
as  my  hands  and  experience  of  Work 
was  able  to  do  the  Binding  in  Russia 
Quarto. 


-     us. 


"  Washing  and  taking  out  the  Writing 
Ink.      Washed  the  whole  Book. 

"  Cleaning  it  was  very  dirty  and  I  am 
certain  took  full  2  Days  Work.  The 
Frontispiece  was  in  a  very  indiffer- 
ent Condition  all  the  Writing  Ink 
is  taken  out  of  it  amended  and  several 
other  places  mended.  The  greatest 
care  hath  been  taken  of  the  Margins. 
Gilt. 


6   6 


-       6 


Leaves  not  Cutt.     £i.  3.  6." 

Roger  Payne  died    in  December,    1797, 
and  the  Gentleman  s  Magazine  of  that  month 

50 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER    PAYNE 

contains  the  following   obituary    notice   of 
him: 


IN  THE  COLLECTION  OF  ALFRED  HUTH,  ESQ^. 

"  In  Duke's  Court,  St.  Martin's  Lane, 
Mr.  Roger  Payne,  the  celebrated  bookbinder, 
whose  death  will  be  a  subject  of  lasting  re- 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

gret  to  the  founders  of  magnificent  libraries. 
This  ingenious  man  introduced  a  style  of 
binding  uniting  elegance  with  durability, 
such  as  no  person  has  ever  been  able  to 
imitate.  He  may  be  ranked  indeed  among 
artists  of  the  greatest  merit.  The  orna- 
ments he  employed  were  chosen  with  a 
classical  taste,  and,  in  many  instances,  ap- 
propriated to  the  subject  of  the  work  or  the 
age  and  time  of  the  author  ;  and  each  book 
of  his  binding  was  accompanied  by  a  writ- 
ten description  of  the  ornaments  in  a  most 
precise  and  curious  style.  His  chef  d'aeuvre 
is  his  'Aeschylus/  in  the  possession  of  Earl 
Spencer,  the  ornaments  and  decorations  of 
which  are  most  splendid  and  classical.  The 
binding  of  the  book  cost  the  noble  Earl  fif- 
teen guineas.  Those  who  are  not  accus- 
tomed to  see  bookbinding  executed  in  any 
other  than  the  common  manner  can  have 
no  idea  of  the  merits  of  the  deceased,  who 
lived  without  a  rival,  and,  we  fear,  has  died 
without  a  successor.  His  remains  were 
decently    interred    at    St.    Martin's-in-the- 

5* 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER    PAYNE 

Fields  at  the  expense  of  a  respectable  and 
upright  bookseller,  resident  in  that  parish, 
to  whom,  in  a  great  measure,  the  admirers 
of  this  ingenious  man's  performances  may 
feel  themselves  indebted  for  the  prolonga- 
tion of  his  life;  having  for  these  last  eight 
years  (with  that  goodness  of  heart  for 
which  his  family  is  distinguished)  provided 
him  with  a  regular  pecuniary  assistance, 
both  for  the  support  of  his  body  and  the 
performance  of  his  work. 

"  What  adds  to  the  credit  of  this  is  that 
this  poor  man  had  not  a  proper  command 
of  himself;  for  formerly,  when  in  possession 
of  a  few  pounds,  he  would  live  jovially ; 
when  that  was  exhausted  almost  famishing. 
It  may  be  proper  to  remark  that  though  his 
name  was  spelt  exactly  as  his  patron's,  he 
was  not  related  to  him." 

The  estimate  of  Payne's  talents  contained 
in  this  account  is  of  course  an  exaggerated 
one,  though  one  cannot  be  surprised  at  it 
when  the  work  of  his  predecessors  and  con- 
temporaries is  taken  into  consideration.    We 

53 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 


IN    THE    BRITISH    MUSEUM.        CRACHERODE    BEQUEST 


have  spoken  of  the  marked  originality  of 
his  designs,  and  this  characteristic  is  an  un- 
deniable fact;  there  is,  however,  one  class 
of  bindings  with  which  they  have  a  certain 
though    distant    relationship — the    English 


54 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    ROGER    PAYNE 

and  particularly  the  Scotch  bindings  of  the 
first  part  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

On  his  successors,  of  course,  the  influence 
of  Payne  was  very  marked — that  is  to  say, 
in  England.  Charles  Lewis  is  his  best  im- 
itator, and  many  say  that  his  work  is  indis- 
tinguishable from  that  of  Payne's  except  by 
its  freedom  of  forwarding  and  general 
superiority  of  technique.  This  view,  how- 
ever, I  cannot  agree  with;  Lewis's  best 
work  was  certainly  altogether  superior  in 
finish,  but  it  is  not  possible  to  mistake  it 
for  Payne's,  if  for  no  other  reason  on  ac- 
count of  just  that  individual  character  on 
which  I  dwelt  at  the  beginning,  and  which 
results  from  the  exclusive  handling  through- 
out, in  the  main  processes,  of  any  work  of 
art  by  the  same  craftsman.  There  is  a 
striking  similarity  between  Roger  Payne's 
style  of  decoration  and  that  of  one  French- 
man which  has  not  apparently  been  noticed. 
Bozerian  le  Jeune,  as  he  was  called  in  dis- 
tinction to  his  brother,  opened  his  workshop 
about  1805,  and  in  the  Exhibition  of  Bind- 

55 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

ings  held  at  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club 
in  1 89 1  there  was  shown  a  small  volume, 
"  Hippocratis  Coacae  Praenotiones,"  in  the 
decoration  of  which  the  same  traditions  of 
flower  and  leaf  on  a  studded  background 
were  closely  followed.  It  is  possible  that 
Bozerian  copied  Payne  as  English  binding 
was  popular  in  France  about  that  time. 

The  back  of  this  little  book,  with  the 
panels  thus  ornamented,  is  reproduced  in 
the  Illustrated  Catalogue  of  the  Exhibition. 


LES  RELIEURS  FRANC^AIS 


Ill 


"LES  RELIEURS  FRAN^AIS" 

BY    E.    THOINAN 

ES  Relieurs  Franfais"  1500- 
1800, by  M.Ernest  Thoinan, 
is,  on  the  whole,  the  most 
important  contribution  to 
the  History  of  Binding  that 
has  been  made  for  many  years.  Before  its 
appearance,  M.  Gruel's  "  Manuel  Historique 
et  Alphabetique  "  might  fairly  claim  to  that 
position.  It  was,  indeed,  the  first  attempt 
to  put  on  anything  like  a  scientific  basis, 
the  information  concerning  binders  and 
their  craft  that  is  to  be  found  scattered 
up  and  down  the  many  books  about  books 
for  which  the  French  have  always  been 
famous. 


59 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

In  France  bibliographical  gossip  has  ever 
met  with  a  ready  reception,  and  the  outsides 
of  books  have  proved  almost  as  interesting  as 
their  insides  ;  but  the  works  are  few  in  num- 
ber that  give  the  results  of  serious  research 
on  the  subject.  When  we  have  mentioned 
M.  Leroux  de  Lincy's  "Jean  Grolier,savieet 
sa  bibliotheque,"  M.Quentin  BauchartV'Les 
femmes  bibliophiles  de  France, "  and  MM. 
Marius-Michel's  "La  Reliure  Francaise," 
we  have  named  all  before  M.  Gruel's  book 
that  repay  study. 

M.  Thoinan's  work  is  of  a  very  different 
order  to  any  of  the  above  named,  and  is  for 
the  most  part  based  upon  documentary  evi- 
dence contained  in  the  records  of  the  Guild 
of  Booksellers,  with  which  the  craft  of  Bind- 
ers was  incorporated  up  to  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

These  documents  were  made  use  of  both 
by  La  Caille  and  Lottin,  by  the  former  in  his 
"Histoire  deTImprimerie  et  de  la  Librairie," 
1689,  and  by  the  latter  in  his  "Catalogue 
chronologique  des  Libraires  et  des  Libraires- 

60 


"  LES    RELIEURS    FRAN£AIS 

Imprimeurs  de  Paris,"  1789.  Neither  of  the 
authors,  however,  being  interested  in  bind- 
ing, made  any  distinction  between  the  two 
trades,  and  the  binder  was  confused  with  the 
bookseller.      The  records  in  question  are  in 


CRIEUR  DE  CONFRERIES 


the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  but  there  are 
also  others  in  the  Library  of  the  Hotel  Car- 
navalet,  which  likewise  contains  the  official 
lists  issued  yearly  throughout  the  eighteenth 
century  by  the  Binders  and  Gilders,  after 
they  formed  a  corporation  of   their    own. 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

With  this  groundwork  M.  Thoinan  has 
made  an  attempt,  and  a  thoroughly  success- 
ful one,  to  take  the  history  of  binders  and 
binding  out  of  the  sphere  of  book-lovers'  gos- 
sip and  unexplained  hypotheses,  and  to  confine 
it  to  the  facts  for  which  there  is  undoubted 
authority.  What  the  subject  henceforth  loses 
in  romance  it  more  than  gains  in  historical 
truth.  In  this  notice  we  shall  point  out  the 
new  ground  which  M.  Thoinan's  researches 
have  enabled  him  to  cover,  and  the  assump- 
tions which,  repeated  without  authority  by 
writer  after  writer,  he  at  length  firmly  dis- 
cards. 

The  book  consists  of  three  distinct  parts : 
an  account  of  the  corporation  of  the  Book- 
binders and  Guilders  of  the  city  of  Paris ; 
a  brief,  but  very  comprehensive,  study  of  the 
different  historical  styles  of  binding,  with 
illustrative  plates  and  descriptive  notes  ;  and 
a  biographical  section,  arranged  in  alphabeti- 
cal order.  The  first  part  gives  a  full  and  de- 
tailed account  of  the  history  of  the  trade  from 
its  earliest  times,  an  account  never  attempted 

62 


"LES    RELIEURS    FRAN£AIS 

succinctly  before.  Here  we  meet  with  much 
fresh  information,  particularly  in  the  chron- 
icle of  the  vicissitudes  the  craft  went  through 
before  it  attained  to  final  independence  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution. 

From  a  very  early  date  no  one  in  Paris 
could  pursue  any  craft  which  had  relation  to 
books  without  license  from  the  University, 
which  exercised  complete  control,  but  on  the 
other  hand  obtained  for  this  body  of  workers 
certain  prerogatives,  such  as  immunities  from 
taxation,  from  providing  a  guard-contingent 
and  the  like. 

The  earliest  statutes  of  the  University  date 
from  1  275,  but  for  long  afterwards  they  make 
no  distinction  between  binders  and  others  en- 
gaged in  bookmaking.  In  1401,  without 
any  attempt  at  emancipation  from  the  guid- 
ance of  the  University,  the  bookseller,  bind- 
ers, writers,  illuminators,  and  parchment 
makers  formed  themselves  into  a  confrater- 
nity, connected  with  the  Church  of  St.  Andre- 
des-Arts,  and  under  the  patronage  of  St.  John 
the  Baptist. 

63 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

In  1467  the  book  business  was  no  longer 
in  a  flourishing  condition,  and  Louis  XI 
was  solicited  for  permission  to  modify  the 
money  regulations  of  the  community,  the 
members  being  unable  to  afford  the  nece 
payments  for  masses.   At  the  same  time,  trie1 


SAINT  ANDRE-DES-ARTS 


king,  wanting  to  create  a  national  guard, 
caused  all  the  trades  to  be  represented  in 
companies  with  a  semi-military  equipment, 
each  under  a  banner  of  its  own.  With  the 
introduction  of  printing  the  whole  business 
of  bookmaking  naturally  emerged  from  the 

64 


"LES    RELIEURS    FRAN£AIS  " 

stagnation  made  evident  by  the  petition  of 
1467,  and  in  1488  the  increase  of  workers 
necessitated  an  edict  of  Charles  VIII,  lim- 
iting the  number  of  those  engaged  in  the 
production  of  books,  who,  being  under  the 
protection  of  the  University,  enjoyed  an  im- 
munity from  taxation.  Louis  XII,  in  his 
patronage  of  art  and  letters,  specially  ex- 
empted them,  in  151  3,  from  a  war  subsidy 
tnat  was  being  raised,  from  various  other 
impositions,  and  from  all  duties  connected 
with  the  protection  of  the  city,  except  in 
cases  of  extreme  danger.  This  liberal  pro- 
tection was  confirmed  by  Francois  I  and 
renewed  by  Henri  II  and  Charles  IX. 

During  the  reign  of  Henri  II,  in  1  549, 
a  sumptuary  law  was  passed,  and  in  1577 
its  provisions  were  extended  so  as  to  affect 
binders.  The  edict  of  that  year  forbade, 
among  other  things,  any  gilding  on  leather 
except  in  the  service  of  princes  or  the 
church,  and,  in  regard  to  books,  specially 
set  forth,  "  that  it  was  permitted  to  gild  the 
leaves  simply,  and  to  have  only  a  gold  line 

65 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

on  the  covers  with  a  centre-piece  not  bigger 
than  a  franc  at  most.,, 

Like  other  similar  efforts  at  sumptuary- 
legislation,  the  edict  of  1577  does  not  seem 
to  have  had  the  slightest  effect,  for  it  was 
actually  at  this  time  that  there  arose  that 
elaborate  style  of  book-ornamentation  with 
which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  the  name  of 
Nicholas  Eve  has  always  been  associated. 
In  1582,  in  consequence  of  difficulties  con- 
nected with  the  parish  of  St.  Andre  and  of 
its  distance  from  the  quarter  chiefly  inhab- 
ited by  the  trade,  the  confraternity  trans- 
ferred itself  to  the  Peres  Mathurins,  and  its 
ceremonies  were  henceforth  transacted  in 
the  church  of  the  Sainte-Trinite,  belonging 
to  those  Fathers.  In  1593  the  King  re- 
leased all  the  trades  from  an  obligation  hith- 
erto enforced,  which  demanded  from  every 
craftsman  the  execution  of  a  chef  d'oeuvre 
on  his  admission  as  a  qualified  master. 
Henceforth  it  was  sufficient  to  have  served 
the  time  required  by  statute  in  each  trade. 
The  practice  had  evidently  become  an  abuse, 

66 


"LES    RELIEURS    FRANfAIS 

inasmuch  as  the  jurors,  who  were  the  elect- 
ive body  chosen  from  the  trade,  and  to 
whom  the  presentation  was  made,  were  in 
the  habit  of  destroying  the  book  unless  it 
was  redeemed  by  the  workman  by  a  money 


L  EGUSE    DES    MATHURINS 


payment  or  some  form  of  entertainment. 
It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  the  binders 
never  availed  themselves  of  the  exemption 
thus  given,  but  that  the  necessity  of  offer- 
ing a  masterpiece  to  the  jurors  prevailed  as 

67 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

a  trade  regulation  as  long  as  the  formal  ad- 
mission of  masters  existed. 

In  1 6 1  8  was  issued  the  first  general  stat- 
ute regulating  the  craft  as  distinguished 
from  the  University  regulations  in  detail 
which  had  prevailed  hitherto.  This  statute 
laid  down  general  laws  for  the  qualification 
of  masters,  terms  of  apprenticeship  and  the 
like.  It  was  as  a  sequel  to  this  new  state 
of  things  that  an  attempt  was  made  in  1621 
to  exclude  gilders  from  the  privileges  of  qual- 
ified membership,  and  to  keep  them  in  sub- 
ordination as  journeymen.  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  at  this  period  booksellers 
were  binders  and  binders  booksellers.  When 
the  elaborate  ornamentation  of  books  had 
brought  into  existence  a  specialized  class  of 
workers,  those  gilders  who  confined  them- 
selves to  tooling  the  leather  covers,  once 
admitted  as  masters,  had  also  taken  to  them- 
selves the  selling  of  books.  As  long  as  they 
were  an  insignificant  minority  they  had  been 
admitted  without  demur,  but  by  1621  they 
had  become  a  considerable  body,  and  an  at- 

68 


"LES    RELIEURS    FRAN9AIS 

tempt  was  made  to  exclude  them  from  the 
bookselling  privilege  by  preventing  them 
from  becoming  masters.  The  decision  of 
Parliament  was,  however,  in  favour  of  the 
gilders. 

It  is  in  connection  with  this  trial  that 
the  legend  arose  that  the  early  bookgilders 
were  gilders  of  boots  and  the  other  leather 
accessories  of  the  dress  of  the  period.  M. 
Thoinan  shows  how  this  idea  came  to  prevail, 
and  the  explanation  is  sufficient  to  com- 
pletely dissipate  it.  One  Ballagny  having 
fallen  into  bad  repute  from  dismissing  a  dis- 
honest apprentice  before  the  expiration  of 
his  time,  the  trade  committee  procured  an 
injunction  annulling  the  indentures  of  the 
lad  and  restraining  Ballagny  from  selling 
books.  Pigoreau,  the  former  master  of 
Ballagny,  joined  the  latter  in  his  defence, 
and  the  two  secured  judgment  in  their  fa- 
vour as  master  gilders  and  booksellers.  A 
similar  action  was  brought  later  on  against 
other  gilders,  and  then  it  was  that  the  pros- 
ecution attempted   to  discredit  the  gilders 

69 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

by  the  assertions  that  Pigoreau  and  Ballagny 
were  originally  nothing  but  boot-gilders, 
and  had  given  up  that  branch  of  their  craft 
and  taken  to  what  they  considered  the  more 
distinguished  one  of  book-gilding  in  order 
that  they  might  constitute  themselves  book- 
sellers, the  chief  position  of  distinction  at 
the  time. 

The  ingenious  special  pleading  on  the 
part  of  the  prosecutor  is  the  only  ground  for 
the  legend.  Both  the  men  named  had 
served  their  apprenticeships,  filled  their 
time  as  journeymen,  and  been  passed  mas- 
ters in  conformity  to  the  existing  regu- 
lations. It  is  possible  that  in  the  very 
early  days  of  stamped  bindings,  the  lines 
and  ornamental  patterns  that  bordered  them 
were  done  by  the  "gaufreurs"  already 
in  possession  of  the  necessary  tools  for  the 
purposes  of  their  own  special  work  of  lea- 
ther decoration;  but  in  a  very  short  time 
a  certain  section  of  these  devoted  themselves 
exclusively  to  the  application  of  their  art  to 
books,  and  very  soon  indeed  constituted  a 

70 


"  LES    RELIEURS    FRANfAIS 

class  by  themselves.  In  connection  with 
this  subject  of  bookgilders,  M.  Thoinan  haz- 
ards an  hypothesis  which  is  not  supported 
by  any  testimony.  It  is  that  the  great  de- 
signs were  not  carried  out  by  the  book- 
gilder  at  all,  who,  inasmuch  as  highly 
decorated  books  were  not  numerous,  prob- 
ably had  not  attained  to  the  necessary  ex- 
perience and  dexterity.  It  is  more  likely, 
he  thinks,  that  they  were  worked  by  the 
leather-gilder,  whose  craft  in  the  sixteenth 
century  comprised  the  ornamentation,  often 
very  elaborate,  of  caskets,  sheathes,  jewel 
cases,  and  the  small  details  of  furniture 
covered  in  leather  after  the  fashion  of  the 
day.  These  workmen,  he  imagines,  alone 
possessed  the  taste  and  technical  dexterity 
to  interpret  the  patterns  probably  made  by 
the  great  masters  of  design  throughout  that 
time.  He  believes,  further,  that  the  painted 
interlaced  work,  belonging  more  by  inspira- 
tion and  nature  to  their  trade  than  to  that 
of  the  gilder,  was  possibly  invented  as  well 
as  executed  by  them. 

71 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

The  history  of  the  trade  society  during 
the  seventeenth  century  is  a  record  of  its 
disputes  with  gold-beaters,  and  with  leather- 
sellers  who  had  raised  their  prices,  and,  most 
important  of  all,  of  the  internal  dissensions 
of  the  binder-booksellers,  resulting  in  the 
final  separation  of  the  two  trades  in  1686. 
The  edict  of  that  year  gave  the  parties  one 
month  in  which  to  decide  which  profession 
they  would  adopt,  and  set  forth  the  new 
regulations  governing  "  Binders  and  Gilders 
of  books  of  the  city  of  Paris." 

The  University,  which  had  not  been  con- 
sulted as  to  the  separation,  opposed  it  on 
behalf  of  the  binders,  but  was  obliged  to 
give  way.  The  seventeen  articles  of  which 
the  edict  is  made  up  are  full  of  interest,  but 
we  have  not  space  to  dwell  upon  them. 
Binders  were  still  obliged  to  live  within  the 
precincts  of  the  University,  the  Guards  of 
the  corporation  were  selected  by  the  King, 
and  were  to  visit  the  workshops  and  see 
that  the  work  was  done  according  to  regu- 
lations, the  interests  of  the  trade  were  safe- 

72 


"  LES    RELIEURS    FRANCAIS  " 

guarded  by  strict  rules  relating  to  apprentice- 
ships and  masterships,  and  from  time  to 
time  no  apprentices  were  allowed  to  be 
taken  if  the  state  of  business  rendered  this 
advisable. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  1 700  cer- 
tain gilders  who  wanted  to  raise  their  prices 
informed  against  the  binders  who  had  re- 
fused their  demand,  stating  that  the  latter 
were  not  sewing  their  books  flexibly,  ac- 
cording to  regulation,  but  were  "sawing  in." 
The  binders  in  their  defence  admitted  this, 
but  said  that  the  price  of  certain  books  did 
not  allow  of  flexible  binding,  and  the  Court 
accepted  their  plea,  deciding  what  books 
should  henceforth  be  exempted  from  the 
regulations.  The  eighteenth  century  is  tak- 
en up  with  the  gradual  revolt  of  the  men 
against  their  masters,  until  the  Revolution 
of  1 79 1  finally  suppressed  all  trade  corpora- 
tions. 

We  must  now  touch  briefly  on  some  of 
the  disputed  points  about  which  M.  Thoi- 
nan  speaks  with  authority.      He  considers 

73 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

that  there  is  no  warrant  for  attributing  to 
the  Eve  family  the  style  always  coupled 
with  their  name,  merely  because  Nicholas 
Eve  happened  to  be  the  royal  binder  of  the 
day.  It  is  an  assertion  based  on  the  idea 
that  the  books  issued  by  the  Eves  as  book- 
sellers were  necessarily  bound  by  them. 
They  might  equally  well  have  been  executed 
in  other  binderies,  and  in  fact  the  only  bind- 
ing done  for  Henri  III,  which  is  absolutely 
authenticated  as  from  the  workshop  of 
Nicholas  Eve  "  Le  livre  des  statuts  du  St. 
Esprit,"  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  has  a 
semis  of  flames  and  fleur-de-lys,  with  em- 
blems and  the  royal  arms,  and  no  trace  of 
the  style  associated  with  this  binder. 

The  place  of  Le  Gascon  is  another  mat- 
ter upon  which  the  author  is  very  emphatic, 
and  about  which  he  takes  an  equally  oppo- 
site view  to  that  of  M.  Gruel.  It  may  be 
remembered  that  the  latter  in  his  "  Manuel 
Historique"  gave  an  exquisite  reproduction  of 
the  binding  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale 
signed  "  Florimond  Badier  invenit  et  fecit," 

74 


"LES    RELIEURS    FRAN£AIS " 

on  which  the  well-known  head  is  repeated 
fifty-two  times. 

M.  Gruel  with  much  ingenuity  concluded 
that  Le  Gascon,  whose  real  name  has  always 
remained  unknown,  but  whose  reputation 
was  clearly  established  in  1622,  must  be 
identical  with  Florimond  Badier.  M.  Thoi- 
nan,  on  the  other  hand,  comes  to  a  differ- 
ent conclusion.  Badier,  apprenticed  to  Jean 
Thomas  in  16 10,  was  admitted  as  a  master 
binder  in  1645.  The  style  of  interlacings 
denned  by  dotted  or  filigree  work,  on  which 
the  head  is  first  seen,  is  quite  distinct  from 
the  style  which  has  a  frame-work  of  lines 
sometimes  broken  at  top,  bottom  and  sides 
by  the  segments  of  a  circle,  and  having  clus- 
ters of  flower-work  at  the  corners,  or 
grouped  as  a  centre-piece,  such  flowers  being 
mixed  line  and  filigree  work,  and  only  an 
occasional  ornament  being  in  dots.  The 
interlaced  style  first  described  is  not  found 
before  1645,  and  M.  Thoinan  considers  that 
it  constituted  a  new  departure  invented  by 
Badier,  and  that  the  head  is  neither  the  por- 

75 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

trait  of  Le  Gascon  nor  a  tool  in  common 
use  by  binders  of  the  time,  but  the  personal 
signature  of  Badier.  As  the  head  is  not 
found  on  any  binding  before  1645,  it  is 
more  likely  that  Badier  should  have  initiated 
his  career  by  its  use  than  that  it  should  be- 
long to  Le  Gascon,  who  had  been  practis- 
ing since  1622.  It  follows  that  all  the 
pointille  bindings  attributed  to  Le  Gascon, 
having  the  head,  executed  for  the  brothers, 
Dupuy,  Seguier,  Fouquet,  and  others,  should 
be  assigned  to  Badier. 

Mr.  W.  Y.  Fletcher  in  an  article  on 
Florimond  Badier,  contributed  to  the  first 
volume  of  "  Bibliographical  is  not  in  agree- 
ment with  M.  Thoinan.  He  considers  that 
the  "Imitation  de  Jesus  Christ,"  printed  in 
1640,  and  preserved  in  the  Bibliotheque 
Nationale  and  the  only  other  signed  binding 
by  Badier,  "  Les  Plaidoyez  et  Harangues  de 
M.  Le  Maistre,"  printed  at  Paris,  in  1657, 
owned  by  the  late  Mr.  Wakefield  Christie 
Miller,  are  more  likely  to  be  clever  imita- 
tions of  the  great  master's  manner. 

76 


"  LES    RELIEURS    FRANfAIS 

Of  what  character  then,  it  may  be  asked, 
are  the  bindings  done  by  Le  Gascon  ?  M. 
Thoinan  considers  that  his  style  is  that 
which  prevailed  for  the  quarter  of  a  century 
after  1622,  when  he  began  to  practice  on 
his  own  account.  This  style  is  the  frame- 
work of  line  straight  or  curved,  with  corners 
and  clusters  of  flowers  delicately  line  en- 
graved, and  with  only  an  occasional  detail  in 
filigree.  If  the  head  is  found  on  this  kind 
of  decoration,  it  is  only  on  bindings  after 
1645,  bindings  executed  by  Badier  in  the 
older  style. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  indicate  the  im- 
portant character  of  M.  Thoinan's  book, 
which  ought  to  find  many  readers  in  Eng- 
land as  well  as  France. 


DESIGN  IN   BOOKBINDING 


IV 


DESIGN  IN  BOOKBINDING 

N  the  following  remarks  on 
the  application  of  ornament 
to  bindings,  it  is  not  desired 
to  lay  down  any  arbitrary 
rules.  If,  after  the  lapse  of 
so  many  centuries,  canons  of  art  are  still  to 
seek,  if  the  lesson  of  the  Greeks  in  sculp- 
ture, of  the  Florentines  in  painting,  of  the 
Renaissance  in  decoration  has  still  left  the 
world  without  a  formulated  theory  of 
aesthetics  which  obtains  the  complete  con- 
sensus of  opinion  of  civilized  nations,  how 
much  less  likely  is  it  that  the  principles  of 
decoration   as  applied   to  the  humbler  arts 

81 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

can  have  become  sufficiently  crystallized  for 
universal  acceptance.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
confusion  of  tongues  on  the  subject  of  ap- 
plied ornament  is  far  greater  now,  when  art 
is  more  conscious  and  less  instinctive,  than 
in  the  days  when  the  craftsman  wrought 
out  of  the  fulness  of  his  inspiration. 

It  has  been  ever  so  in  the  history  of  the 
arts,  the  period  of  free  creation  has  never 
been  one  of  theory,  and  when  art  and  handi- 
craft were  practically  indistinguishable,  the 
artist  would  have  been  sorely  puzzled  to 
give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in  him. 

Only  when  the  instinctive  moment  has 
given  away  to  the  self-conscious  attitude  has 
the  need  arisen  for  canons  of  taste  and  for 
analysis  of  the  previous  products  of  spon- 
taneity. Unhappily  the  converse  is  also 
true.  When  the  mind  is  exercised  upon 
the  vital  questions  of  art — what  may  be  its 
utterances,  what  modes  of  expression  are 
legitimate,  and  the  like — it  is  a  sign  sure 
and  unfailing  that  the  fullest  and  freest  act- 
ivity, the  most  spontaneous  inspiration  is  for 

82 


THE  BARD  OF  THE  DIMBOVITZA,  I  892 


DESIGN     IN     BOOKBINDING 

the  time  in  abeyance.  If  this  is  unavoid- 
able, and  indeed  it  seems  to  form  part  of  a 
natural  sequence,  and  if  the  attitude  of  self- 
conscious  seeking  belongs  to  our  own  age, 
as  I  think  must  be  admitted,  can  we  not  at 
least  take  heart  of  grace  and  turn  to  some 
account  this  very  minute  sifting  and  weigh- 
ing of  past  achievements  ?  If  we  can  no 
longer — at  least  for  the  moment — create,  in 
the  most  real  sense  of  the  word,  can  we  not 
discover  why,  in  the  matter  of  applied  or- 
nament, for  instance,  we  should  do  certain 
things,  and  why  we  must  assuredly  not  do 
certain  other  things  ? 

Yet  on  looking  round  at  the  minor  arts 
one  is  tempted  to  despair,  for  the  only  prin- 
ciple one  can  find  of  universal  acceptance  is 
that  there  is  nothing  that  may  not  be  done. 
The  extravagant,  the  eccentric,  the  bizarre 
everywhere  prevails.  Mrs.  Meynell  has 
devoted  one  of  her  slight  but  finely  handled 
essays  on  "The  Rhythm  of  Life"  to  what 
she  calls  "the  obsession  of  man  by  the  flow- 
er."     Is  one  not  reminded   of  it  by   one's 

85 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

chintzes  and   cretonnes,    one's   wall-papers, 
carpets,    and   curtains?     "In  the  shape  of 


iliUP 


■ROM  *  •    \\X    V 


5T*  *  'jjZijj^K^j^F 

^ak.of    '    /f-T    /TT>    /TT>     /rr*     \m 


,^_^4L_^/ 


KI-3MI&.3HI t 


GHAZELS  FROM   THE  DIVAN  OF  HAFIZ,    1 893 


the  flower  man's  own  paltriness  revisits  him 
—  his  triviality,  his  sloth,  his  cheapness,  his 


86 


DESIGN    IN    BOOKBINDING 

wholesale  habitualness,  his  slatternly  osten- 
tation. What  the  tyranny  has  really  grown 
to  can  be  gauged  nowhere  so  well  as  in 
country  lodgings,  where  the  most  ordinary 
things  of  design  and  decoration  have  sifted 
down  and  gathered  together,  so  that  foolish 
ornament  gains  accumulative  force  and 
achieves  a  conspicuous  commonness.  Stem, 
petal,  and  leaf — the  fluent  forms  that  a  man 
has  not  by  heart,  but  certainly  by  rote — are 
woven,  printed,  cast,  and  stamped  wherever 
restlessness  and  insimplicity  have  feared  to 
leave  plain  spaces." 

If  we  turn  to  our  furniture  is  it  not  most- 
ly covered  with  ornament — save  the  mark 
— so  that  the  quality  of  its  material  is  hid- 
den, which  perhaps  as  it  happens  may  not 
be  wholly  without  intent?  Be  that  as  it 
may,  it  is  at  least  a  subject  for  reflection 
that  even  the  oak  that  has  descended  to  us, 
in  its  plain  simplicity,  from  our  forefathers, 
must  perforce  be  carved  upon  with  all  man- 
ner of  puerile  patterns,  before  it  can  prove 
marketable. 

87 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

An  early  critic  of  Mr.  Cobden  Sander- 
son's bindings,  somewhat  indignant  at  the 
high  prices  he  obtained,  thus  describes  his 
work  with  caustic  irony :  "  His  soul  is  as 
much  in  what  he  leaves  out  as  in  what  he 
puts  in — you  seem  to  pay  for  reticence." 
Unconsciously  this  writer  hit  upon  a  great 
principle,  almost  the  greatest  in  decorative 
matters,  which,  if  it  only  obtained  as  it 
should  do,  would  save  us  from  much  of  the 
vulgar  meanness  that  prevails  in  every-day 
minor  art.  How  many  of  us  would  not 
gladly  pay  for  reticence  if  so  be  we  could 
find  it!  But,  alas!  the  public  is  of  the 
same  mind  as  the  critic.  In  proportion  to 
the  price  must  be  the  quantity  of  ornament, 
and  so  it  comes  about  that  the  eye  is  fatigued 
by  its  presence  in  season  and  out  of  season,  and 
competitors  in  the  market  of  production  vie 
with  each  other  as  to  the  amount  that  can 
be  offered  for  the  money.  Is  it  wholly  im- 
possible to  educate  public  taste  in  this  one 
matter  ?  Every  year  now  brings  its  exhibi- 
tion of  arts  and   crafts  in   different   parts  of 

88 


DESIGN     IN    BOOKBINDING 


THE  SHF.PHEARDES  CALENDER    (KELMSCOTT  PRESS),    1 895 

the  world,  and  almost  every  month  its  prac- 
tical hand-books,  its  treatises  on  the  theory 
and  practice  of  design,  or  on  the  principles 
and  analysis  of  ornament.      Is  it  not  possible 

89 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

to  teach  that  the  due  subordination  of  de- 
coration is  every  bit  as  important  as  a  feel- 
ing for  beauty  of  form,  or  a  grasp  of  the 
limitations  imposed  by  the  character  of  the 
material  and  the  tools  that  work  it.  The 
designer  who  does  not  know  where  and  when 
to  stay  his  hand  fails  just  as  much  as  the 
man  who  has  no  sense  of  proportion,  no  in- 
stinct for  grace  of  curve,  or  purity  of  line ; 
fails  even  more  perhaps  than  the  man  who 
treats  metal  like  wood,  or  stone  like  iron. 

To  learn  the  lesson  of  appropriate  book 
decoration  we  must  take  a  look  at  some  of 
the  early  work.  And  by  appropriate  we 
do  not  mean  in  any  way  allusive.  The 
size  and  relative  dimensions  of  length 
and  breadth,  not  necessarily  the  written  or 
printed  content,  should  give  the  key  to 
the  design  on  the  outside  of  the  book, 
though  the  subject-matter  may  often  suggest 
the  motive  for  a  pattern.  Some  of  the  very 
early  stamped  work  done  in  England  toward 
the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  is  as  signifi- 
cant for  our  purpose  as  any  that  came  later, 

9o 


DESIGN     IN    BOOKBINDING 

in  the  days  when  binding  has  been  justly- 
celebrated  as  reaching  its  zenith  as  an  art. 


1 

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A  CHILD'S  GARDEN   OF  VERSES.      R.    L.    STEVENSON,    1 885 

The  books  bound  for  Bishop  Pudsey,  and 
still  preserved  in  the  cathedral  library  at 
Durham  are  decorated  most  frequently  with 


91 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

dies  of  a  varied  kind  representing  men  on 
horseback,  fabulous  animals,  and  formal  de- 
signs. The  scheme  or  ornament  on  the  side 
is  generally  a  parallelogram  formed  by  lines 
of  these  designs,  but  in  some  examples  there 
is  interlaced  chain-work  of  Eastern  character 
which  also  frames  the  sides  in  lines  that  run 
parallel  with  the  boards. 

The  Netherlandish  bindings  of  the  mid- 
dle of  the  fourteenth  century  show  us  an- 
other kind  of  decoration,  strong  and  simple 
and  eminently  adjusted  to  the  natural  lines 
of  the  book.  This  is  the  panel  stamp,  some- 
times occupying  most  of  the  cover,  some- 
times used  only  as  a  central  ornament, 
sometimes  again  bordered  by  a  motto  or  text 
in  the  decorative  letters  of  the  time,  which 
not  infrequently  included  the  name  of  the 
binder.  These  panels  were  either  composed 
of  spiral  foliage  containing  birds  and  beasts, 
or  they  were  pictorial  and  represented  scenes 
like  the  adoration  of  the  Magi  and  the  An- 
nunciation. But  the  most  attractive  picto- 
rial panel  stamps  are  to   be   found  on    the 

92 


THE  HOUSE  OF   LIFE.      D.    G.    ROSSETTI,    1 894 


91 


DESIGN    IN    BOOKBINDING 

French  bindings  of  the  period.  Most  of 
these  represent  scriptural  scenes,  but  some 
few  are  parlant,  like  the  well-known  one  of 
the  Rouen  binder  Jehan  Moulin,  in  which 
the  device  of  a  miller  and  his  sacks  has  a 
punning  allusion  to  the  name. 

In  all  this  early  stamped  work  we  get 
these  two  main  schemes  of  decoration,  the 
border  and  the  centre  panel.  The  char- 
acter of  the  designs,  too,  was  bold  and  broad 
until  degeneration  set  in  toward  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  At  its  best  period 
there  was  subordination  of  detail  to  breadth 
of  effect ;  the  main  lines  of  the  ornamenta- 
tion, too,  were  always  distinct,  so  that  there 
was  both  balance  and  contrast,  which  in  the 
matter  of  surface  decoration  may  almost  be 
said  to  correspond  to  light  and  shade  in  the 
field  of  pictorial  art. 

The  next  period  during  which  the  in- 
stinct for  appropriateness  in  design  seems 
most  marked  is  that  of  the  early  Italian  and 
French  bindings,  when  gold  tooling  had  be- 
come established.      At  that  time  the  feeling 

95 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

for  symmetry  prevailed  over  all  else,  and  no 
doubt  in  the  special  geometrical  character 


THE  DEFENCE  OF  GUENEVERE.      WILLIAM   MORRIS,   I  858 

of  many  of  the  designs  it  was  often  carried 
to  excess.      Notwithstanding  this,  however, 

96 


DESIGN    IN    BOOKBINDING 

there  is  no  time  at  which  there  was  such 
largeness  of  conception,  such  harmony  of 
line,  and,  above  all,  such  dignity  of  re- 
sult. Nor  was  there  any  lack  of  variety 
of  treatment.  Indeed,  one  is  struck  by 
the  wealth  of  resource  shown  by  the  de- 
signers of  the  time,  considering  that  the 
framework  was  so  largely  geometrical. 
Sometimes  intricate  and  elaborate,  at  others 
simple  and  severe,  the  interlacings  are  rarely 
repeated.  The  spaces  are  treated  with  ad- 
mirable reticence;  it  is  but  seldom  they  are 
filled  in  with  any  detail,  though  occasionally 
in  parts  they  are  studded  with  gold  dots.  This, 
it  may  be  noted,  is  one  of  the  lessons  we 
may  learn  from  a  study  of  the  bindings  of 
this  particular  time — the  value  to  the  design 
of  those  blank  spaces  between  the  lines  of 
gold  that  of  themselves  decorate  so  simply 
yet  so  richly  the  covers  of  those  early 
printed  books.  There  is  a  fine  sense  of  pro- 
portion in  the  severity  of  many  of  the  patterns, 
while  grace  is  attained  in  the  character  of  the 
lines  and  curves  instead  of  by  triviality  of 

97 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

detail,  which  is  so  often  the  modern  method 
of  achieving  the  same  end. 

At  this  point  one  may,  perhaps,  be  par- 
doned for  making  a  slight  digression  on  the 
subject  of  the  fashion  that  has  prevailed  so 
long  at  home  and  abroad  of  reproducing 
the  designs  of  early  French  bindings. 

There  is  one  special  attraction  in  the  old 
work  that  lies  quite  apart  from  its  beauty  and 
instinct  of  design.  That  attraction  is  the 
spontaneous  handling,  the  freedom  of  treat- 
ment that  characterizes  all  the  bindings  in 
the  golden  age  of  the  art  before  the  last 
part  of  the  sixteenth  century.  We  may 
find,  no  doubt,  some  explanation  of  this  in 
the  want  of  technical  dexterity  which  has 
since  been  acquired,  in  the  fact  that  the 
standard  of  finish  had  not  taken  the  undue 
position  which  it  has  since  occupied,  but 
the  real  reason  is  probably  that  the  execu- 
tor like  the  designer  was  also  an  artist,  and 
in  his  hands  the  result  never  attained  to  me- 
chanical precision,  but  was  always  instinct 
with  movement  and   life.       In  the  transfer 


DESIGN    IN    BOOKBINDING 

of  the  design  to  the  cover  the  spirit  of  the 
designer  was  in  a  measure  transferred.  The 
present-day  imitations  of  Groliers,  Eves  and 


A  SHADOW   OF  DANTE.     M.    F.    ROSSETTI,    187I 


Le  Gascons  are  lifeless  copies.  They  are, 
indeed,  executed  with  far  more  technical 
skill  than  the  originals,  often  with  far  more 
accuracy  of  line  and  curve,  but  the  spirit  of 

99 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

the  artist  is  absent,  and  the  result  is  a  tri- 
umph of  formal  skill,  not  an  achievement 
of  artistic  feeling. 

It  was  during  the  reign  of  Henri  II  that 
bindings  reached  their  highest  perfection. 
At  no  subsequent  period  have  they  been  so 
bold  and  fine  in  design  and  so  unfettered  by 
any  tradition.  To  begin  with,  the  decora- 
tive conception  in  itself  was  in  the  grand 
manner,  and  when  the  graceful  scroll  work 
and  interlacings  were  diversified  by  fleurons 
and  other  small  tools,  these  in  no  way  inter- 
fered in  detail  with  the  effect  as  a  whole. 
How  consummate  a  period  this  was,  not 
only  in  binding  but  in  all  the  decora- 
tive arts,  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that 
it  has  been  the  main  source  of  inspiration 
for  all  subsequent  ages.  It  is,  indeed,  on  ac- 
count of  these  things  of  great  price  in  the 
past  that  we  have  so  much  that  is  trivial  in 
the  present.  For  to  the  excellence  of  that 
past  is  due  the  machine-made  reproduction 
of  its  detail,  a  detail  that,  removed  from  its 
setting,  is  often  mere  futility — "  the  multi- 


DESIGN    IN    BOOKBINDING 

plicity  that  is  the  disgrace  of  decoration. " 
If  art  is  to  be  art,  it  must  have  some  or- 
ganic quality,  and  that  quality  is  one  that 
can  never  be  multiplied,  and  least  of  all  by 
the  perfection  of  mechanical  processes. 

Let  us  take  a  look  at  some  of  the  other 
styles  in  binding  that  have  a  well-deserved 
reputation.  And  first  that  of  the  Eves,  a 
family  of  binders  who  are  said  to  have  worked 
between  1578  and  1 63 1 .  The  geometrically 
shaped  compartments  still  remain  often  linked 
together  by  interlaced  circles.  The  centres  of 
these  compartments  are  filled  with  small  fleu- 
rons  instead  of  the  well-articulated  moresque 
ornaments  of  Grolier's  time,  and  they  are 
surrounded  by  scrolls  and  spirals  and  branches 
of  laurels  and  palm.  It  is  an  extremely 
elaborate  style,  carried  out  with  much  feli- 
city, and  resulting  in  great  richness  of  effect. 
No  other  has  had  so  much  admiration  be- 
stowed upon  it.  The  compartments  in  its 
composition  are  very  numerous,  the  branch- 
work,  which  is  the  most  original  feature,  is 
entirely  light  and  graceful  and  unsparingly 


BOOKBINDERS    AND     THEIR    CRAFT 

interwoven,  while  the  entire  field  of  the 
cover  is  filled  with  delicate  detail.  But  we 
miss  the  architectural  qualities  of  the  earlier 


HERODIAS.      G.    FLAUBERT   ( VALE  PRESS  ),    I9OI 

period — the  unification  of  parts  that  give 
the  sense  of  wholly  just  proportion,  the  fine 
spaces  of  untouched  leather  that  show  the 
complete    control  of  the  designer's   fancy. 


•  _£* 


! 

I 


DESIGN    IN    BOOKBINDING 

In  the  Eve  bindings,  it  is  true,  we  see  great 
imaginative  qualities  and  much  resource, 
but  the  artist's  fancy  is  too  unchecked,  and 
there  is  a  restlessness  in  the  result  that  does 
not  make  for  satisfaction.  If  it  is  "  the  per- 
fection of  richness  in  book-decoration  " — 
and  it  would  be  hard  to  deny  this  descrip- 
tion of  the  style  claimed  for  it — it  is  not  in 
our  opinion  the  perfection  of  appropriate- 
ness, especially  when  seen  on  volumes  of 
large  size. 

The  next  well-known  style — that  of  Le 
Gascon — is  substantially  a  further  develop- 
ment of  the  Eve  school,  though  very  differ- 
ent in  character.  Just  as  the  Eves  achieved 
originality,  not  in  the  framework  of  their 
designs,  but  by  the  happy  accident  of  their 
branch  decoration,  so  Le  Gascon  acquired  a 
manner  through  that  novel  change  in  his 
scroll-work  which  is  always  associated  with 
his  name.  Ever  since  the  time  of  Grolier, 
when  individual  ornaments  were  rather  large 
and  like  in  character  to  those  used  by  Al- 
dus at  his  press,  the  tools  had  been  getting  ever 

103 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

finer  and  finer,  until  in  the  hands  of  the  un- 
known binder  called  Le  Gascon  they  reached 
the  extreme  of  delicacy   He  took  the  geomet- 


UNE  VIE  SIMPLE.      G.    FLAUBERT    (VALE  PRESS  ) ,    I9O] 


rical  framework  of  the  Eves  as  the  basis  of 
his  designs,  but  had  all  his  ornaments .  cut 
with  a  dotted  face  instead  of  solid  line.  In 
what  is  believed  to  be  his  early  work  he  used 


104 


DESIGN    IN    BOOKBINDING 

a  substantial  frame-work  of  continuous  line, 
but  later  on  he  abandoned  it  and  made  up 
his   designs  of  the  pointille  ornament  alone, 


LEGENDS  DE  ST.   JULIEN.     G.    FLAUBERT   ( VALE  PRESS ),    1 9OO 

which  resulted  in  a  tracery  of  the  most  min- 
ute character.  In  that  early  work  he  is 
seen  at  his  best,  for,  as  he  nearly  always  used 
morocco  of  a  brilliant  red,  the  contrast  be- 

105 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

tween  the  bands  bordered  by  solid  line  and 
the  spaces  within  filled  with  a  mass  of  spark- 
ling arabesque,  results  in  an  effect  of  color 
not  often  equalled  and  certainly  never  sur- 
passed. 

In  a  certain  sense  a  Le  Gascon  binding  of 
the  simpler  period  fulfills  the  conditions  of 
proportion  and  balance  better  than  one  of  the 
Eve  school.  For  in  the  first  place,  though 
the  detail  is  equally  lavish,  yet  being  all  of 
fine  pointille  scroll-work,  there  is  not  the 
want  of  repose  about  the  whole  which  re- 
sults from  that  admixture  of  diverse  orna- 
ment which  characterizes  the  Eve  style  in 
its  latest  manifestations.  And  in  the  second 
place  the  strongly  marked  bands  of  color 
above  described  emphasize  the  lay-out  of 
the  design  and  so  preserve  its  architectural 
qualities  unimpaired.  The  firmness  of 
drawing  in  the  ground-plan  is  not  tampered 
with  by  the  intrusion  of  detail. 

There  is  little  more  that  is  instructive 
from  our  point  of  view  in  the  history  of 
binding.    The  Vandyke  borders  of  Derome, 

106 


DESIGN     IN    BOOKBINDING 

inspired  by  the  lace-work  of  the  time,  have 
no  qualities  of  design.  Indeed,  some  of  the 
English  and  Scotch  bindings  of  the  last 
quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century  and 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  show  more 
instinct  for  appropriate  decoration  than  any 
later  work  in  the  French  school.  Hence- 
forth multiplicity  of  detail  and  repetition 
of  parts  seem  to  do  duty  for  design,  and  the 
simplicity  and  dignity  of  the  early  masters 
are  forgotten  in  a  profuse  and  meaningless 
ornamentation. 

In  conclusion  I  must  add  a  few  words 
concerning  the  illustrations  that  accompany 
the  text.  It  is  not  suggested  that  they  are 
adequate  expressions  of  the  principles  that 
have  been  set  forth  in  the  course  of  this 
paper,  which  seem  to  underlie  the  best 
work  of  every  period.  Nor  is  it  to  be 
assumed  that  they  are  in  any  way  put  for- 
ward as  models  for  imitation,  since  imita- 
tion, though  it  may  be  the  sincerest  form 
of  flattery,  is  at  the  root  of  all  that  is  most 
impotent    in   matters    of  art  or  handicraft. 

107 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

Their  purport  is  chiefly  to  show  what  can  be 
done  with  a  few  tools  in  the  direction  above 
indicated,  under  the  guiding  principles  of 
appropriateness  of  line,  simplicity  of  effect 
and  reticence  in  the  matter  of  display.  The 
three  last  show  the  same  tool  disposed  in  a 
panel,  a  border  and  an  all-over  design. 


SOME  FRENCH  BINDERS  OF  TO-DAY 


SOME  FRENCH  BINDERS  OF  TO-DAY 


RENCH  craftsmen  of  to-day, 
as  far  as  binding  is  concerned, 
fall  naturally  into  two  classes, 
those  who  still  repeat  and 
adapt  old  models,  and  those 
who  are  bent  upon  seeking  some  new  thing. 
The  first  consider  that  the  right  traditions 
of  ornament  have  been  given  once  and  for 
all,  and  need  only  be  followed  with  ever- 
increasing  skill  and  technical  perfection  ;  the 
second  feel  that  new  departures  are  necessary 
if  the  art  is  to  respond  to  modern  needs. 
The  conservatives  restrict  their  ornaments  to 
the  strictly  traditional,  admitting  no  further 
novelty  than  that  which   consists    in   fresh 


in 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

adaptations  of  the  same  "  tools,"  while  there- 
formers  will  sooner  go  out  of  the  lines  hith- 
erto recognized  as  legitimate,  than  continue 
to  work  in  the  well-worn  grooves.  It  is  the 
old  opposition  between  "  les  classiques  "  and 
"  les  jeunes,"  often  recurrent  in  the  literary 
history  of  France,  and  permeating,  as  it 
would  seem,  the  whole  artistic  life  of  the 
country  in  a  way  that  has  no  parallel  here. 
Such  a  cleavage,  well  denned  among  poets 
and  painters  of  the  moment,  is  thus  repeated 
in  miniature  in  the  humbler  arts,  greatly  to 
their  benefit,  and  to  that  of  the  public  as 
well. 

That  the  old  traditions  of  any  art  at  its 
best  and  most  inspired  periods  should  be 
kept  green  is  a  safeguard  against  its  deterio- 
ration and  lapse  into  the  merely  novel  and 
eccentric.  That  efforts  should  be  made  on 
the  lines  of  a  new  interpretation  of  the  scope 
and  possibilities  of  that  art  prevents  the  life- 
less copying  of  past  achievement.  It  is  thus 
that  such  opposition  benefits  the  art  or  craft 
itself;  but  for  the  public,  too,  it  is  of  equal 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

value.  They  have  on  the  one  side,  not  only 
the  actual  models  of  the  past,  of  which  per- 
haps they  must  go  in  search,  but  their  trans- 
lations in  the  hands  of  the  modern  worker  ; 
and  on  the  other  side  the  attempts  to  get 
away  from  these  models  and  to  invent  anew. 
The  tendency  toward  the  approval  of  mere 
eccentricity,  which  we  must  admit  to  be 
prevalent  at  the  present  time,  has  thus  a 
chance  of  being  held  in  check  by  the  con- 
stant presence  of  that  which  has  become 
classical.  The  art  of  binding  will  never  be 
able  to  free  itself  from  the  support  of  tradi- 
tion. If  there  are  modern  books  belonging 
exclusively  in  initiation  to  our  own  age,  and 
therefore  lending  themselves  most  appropri- 
ately to  new  experiments  by  the  binder  who 
is  original  and  personal  in  his  work,  there 
will  always  be  others,  numerous  and  valuable 
as  well,  that  it  will  be  impossible  to  fitly 
decorate  without  a  profound  study  of  all  that 
was  best  in  the  past. 

In  noticing  some  typical  French  binders 
of  to-day,  we  propose  to  take  them  in  the 

"3 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

following  sequence:  those  who  are  purely 
classic  in  their  decoration ;  those  who, 
mainly  classic,  have  yet  a  sympathy  with 
new  departures  and  have  contributed  to- 
ward them,  and  lastly,  those  who,  in  the 
attempt  to  break  fresh  ground,  have,  more  or 
less,  invented  a  style  of  their  own. 

If  there  seems  less  to  be  said  about  the  first 
than  about  some  of  the  others,  it  is  only 
because  they  are  content  not  to  challenge 
criticism,  and  because  their  work  is  confined 
to  lines  well-known  to  all  amateurs  in  bind- 
ing. 

And  first  we  will  take  M.  Chambolle, 
whose  house  was  founded  about  1834  by 
Duru.  Duru  learnt  his  solid  "forwarding" 
—  what  the  French  so  aptly  call  "  le  corps 
d'ouvrage  " — as  a  pupil  of  Bauzonnet,  in 
whose  workshop  Trautz  was  then  a  "  finish- 
er/' He  was  desirous  of  setting  up  together 
with  Trautz,  but  Bauzonnet,  who  had  the 
same  idea,  carried  the  day,  and  his  firm  be- 
came that  of  Trautz-Bauzonnet,  while  Duru 
started  on  his  own  account.      His  Jansenist 

114 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

bindings  soon  became  famous,  and  later  on, 
with  Marius  Michel  as  gilder,  and  a  clien- 
tele of  the  richest  booklovers  of  his  day,  he 


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A  BINDING  BY  CHAMBOLLE  FOR  GAUTIER  S     "  MLLE.  DE  MAUPIN 


did  much  elaborate  work,  although  always  of 
a  traditional  kind.  His  reputation  was  so 
great  that  even  old  bindings  were  destroyed 
that  the  books  might  be  clothed  afresh  by 
Duru.      In  i  86 1  he  began  to  think  of  re- 


us 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

tirement,  and  associated  Chambolle  with  him 
for  the  next  two  years,  that  he  might  pass 
on  to  a  worthy  successor  the  habits  and 
practices  of  his  house.  These  Chambolle 
has  kept  up,  and  although  in  the  matter 
of  style  he  has  never  adventured  upon  new 
paths,  his  bindings  are  among  the  best  of 
their  kind. 

Another  name,  equally  well-known,  is  that 
of  M.  Marcelin  Lortic,  who,  since  the  death 
of  his  father  in  1892,  has  carried  on  his 
business  alone.  It  was  in  1840  that  Lortic 
pere  came  to  Paris  determined  to  make  a 
name  for  himself  in  the  craft  that  he  loved. 
With  patient  resolution  he  gradually  gained 
great  mastery  over  it,  winning  medals  from 
time  to  time  at  different  exhibitions,  until  the 
government  finally  recognized  his  services 
to  art  by  giving  him  the  Legion  of  Honor  in 
1878.  The  secret  of  his  success,  though  an 
open  one,  is  none  the  less  difficult  of  imitation. 
A  stern  critic  of  his  own  results,  he  was  never 
satisfied  with  falling  below  his  own  standard 
of  perfection,  and  in  the  attainment  of  this 

u6 


SOME     FRENCH     BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 


A  BINDING  BY  LORTIC  FILS  FOR  POE's   "TAMERLANE,"    I  894 


ideal  he  would  often  strip  and  re-do  the  work 
until  it  met  with  his  approval. 

His  feeling  with  regard  to  books  was  of 
the  same  order.  Nothing  short  of  the  most 
perfect  specimens  were  fit  for  his  efforts  as 
an  artist,  and  when  he  died  there  were  some 
two  hundred  volumes,  the  best  of  their  kind 


117 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

in  bindings,  executed  by  himself.  He  was, 
perhaps,  the  first  binder  who  attempted  to 
leave  the  beaten  track.  Up  to  that  time 
there  had  been  no  higher  ideal  among  his 
fellows  than  to  produce  imitation  after  imi- 
tation of  the  old  models.  There  was  no 
suggestion  of  originality  or  innovation  of 
any  sort.  His  misfortune  was,  that,  as  he 
had  but  few  modern  books  entrusted  to  him, 
his  innovations  were  often  inopportune, 
and  were  put  upon  classics  that  a  finer  taste 
would  have  exempted  from  decorative  ex- 
periment. 

One  son,  M.  Edmond  Lortic,  has  inher- 
ited his  taste  for  books,  and  is  well  known 
as  a  collector  of  valuable  editions  ;  the  other, 
Marcelin,  was  apprenticed  as  a  binder  at 
fourteen,  and  continued  to  learn  "  forward- 
ing "  for  four  years,  when  he  became  a 
"  finisher,"  and  has  ever  since  devoted  him- 
self to  that  branch  of  the  business.  Like 
M.  Chambolle,  he  prides  himself  upon  be- 
ing a  pure  classic,  and  it  is  not  often  that 
he  deviates  from  the  most  beaten  track. 

118 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

We  pass  on  to  M.  Emile  Mercier,  suc- 
cessor to  Frampois  Cuzin,  who  died  in  i  890, 
and  for  whom  he  worked  as  gilder.  M. 
Mercier  began  his  apprenticeship  in  1869, 
with  M.  Magnier,  where  he  remained  three 
and  a  half  years.  After  that  he  was  in  two 
houses  of  second-rate  importance  until  1 876, 
when  he  took  over  the  whole  bound  morocco 
work'  at  M.  Smeers.  In  1882  he  joined 
M.  Cuzin,  from  whose  taste  and  counsel 
he  benefited  greatly,  and  of  whose  friendly 
aid  he  can  never  say  enough.  For  eight 
years  their  collaboration  was  of  the  closest 
and  warmest  nature,  only  ending  with  M. 
Cuzin's  death.  Two  years  later  M.  Mer- 
cier took  over  the  direction  of  the  business, 
and  his  great  object  ever  since  has  been  to 
sustain  the  reputation  of  his  predecessor. 
All  the  gilding  exhibited  on  the  bindings 
of  M.  Cuzin  in  1889  was  done  by  M.  Mer- 
cier, and  a  contemporary  binder,  writing  of 
this  display,  describes  it  in  the  following 
terms  :  "  We  have  rarely  seen  '  finishing  ' 
executed  with  such  vigour ;   the  decoration 

119 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

seems  to  be  chased  in  massive  gold.  It  is 
certainly  of  extraordinary  solidity  and  will 
retain   its    brilliancy    during    many  years." 


A    BINDING    BY     MERCIER    FOR    "  ROMEO    AND    JULIET 


The  French  have  a  higher  standard  of  the 
technical  qualities  of  "  finishing  "  than  ex- 
ists elsewhere,  and  criticise  it  entirely  apart 
from    design,    or    anything   else   connected 


SOME     FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

with  the  binding.      It  is  interesting  to  ob- 
serve  that    in   the  opinion  of    his    brother 


A  BINDING  BY  GRUEL  FOR  ZOLA  S   "  LE  REVE 


craftsmen  M.  Mercier  is  the  finest  gilder  of 
the  moment. 

M.  Leon  Gruel's  business  is  the  oldest 
established  of  all  described  in  this  paper. 
Founded  in  1 8 1 1  by  M.  Desforges  it  was  given 


21 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

over  to  his  son-in-law  Gruel  in  1 8  2  5 .  On  the 
death  of  her  husband  in  1 846  Madame  Gruel 
continued  the  conduct  of  the  house  till  1 8  5 1 , 
when  she  re-married  with  M.  Englemann, 
a  printer  of  note.  Henceforth  the  firm, 
under  the  name  of  Gruel-Englemann,  or- 
ganized a  new  departure  in  the  issue  of  fine 
editions  of  Service  books,  missals  and  the 
like,  of  which  it  has  since  made  a  specialty, 
but  at  the  same  time  the  binding  depart- 
ment was  kept  up  to  its  former  level  of  ex- 
cellence. In  1875  Madame  Englemann, 
again  left  a  widow,  associated  her  two  sons 
with  her ;  M.  Leon  Gruel,  son  of  her  first 
marriage,  became  head  of  the  bindery,  and 
M.  Edouard  Englemann,  eldest  son  of  the 
second  marriage,  took  over  the  direction 
of  the  printing  and  publishing  department. 
From  its  earliest  days  the  business  has  al- 
ways had  the  highest  reputation,  both  for 
initiative  in  artistic  matters,  as  well  as  for 
irreproachable  execution  in  the  detail  of  its 
many-sided  achievements.  It  has  indeed 
been  the  nursery  of  all  the  chief  binders  of 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

the  time,  and  no  other  house  in  any  coun- 
try has  a  roll-call  of  such  distinguished 
names.  Marius  Michel  pere  remained  there 
twelve  years,  and  only  left  it  to  establish 
himself  as  the  most  celebrated  gilder  of  the 
century.  Chambolle  and  Thouvenin  were 
there  also,  as  well  as  David,  Thibaron, 
Motte,  Joly,  Loisetier  and  others,  who  have 
since  founded  binderies  of  their  own.  Nor 
must  we  omit  the  names  of  Rossigneux,  a 
designer  of  extraordinary  genius,  Lienard, 
the  designer  and  carver  in  wood,  the  broth- 
ers Sollier,  enamellers  of  exquisite  taste,  all 
of  whom  contributed  toward  the  revival  of 
mediaeval  bindings,  of  which  M.  Gruel  dis- 
covered the  traditions  anew.  To  the  French 
the  decorated  Prayer  Book  is  a  form  of  luxury, 
and  on  the  occasion  of  a  first  Communion 
or  of  marriage  affords  the  opportunity  for  a 
costly  offering.  It  will  thus  easily  be  seen 
that  on  devotional  works  can  be  lavished  a 
variety  of  binding  that  finds  no  place  in  the 
ordinary  library.  M.  Gruel  has  employed 
all  the    decorative  arts  as   adjuncts   to    the 

i*3 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

embellishments   of   the    "  livre    de   piete." 
Painted  mosaics,  enamels,  wrought  metal  in 


A   BINDING   BY 


clasps,  corners  and  panels,  sculptured  wood 
and  ivory,  the  monastic  invention  of  "  cuir 
cisele,"  all  these  arts  of  many  kinds  and 
many  ages   have  been    applied   in   faultless 


124 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

workmanship  to  the  Service  Book  of  this 
century. 

The  work  of  his  house  is,  perhaps,  better 
known  in  America  than  that  of  any  other, 
on  account  of  the  important  collection  sent 
to  the  Chicago  Exhibition,  which  comprised 
a  carefully  studied  variety  of  book-covers, 
including  most  of  the  kinds  above  men- 
tioned. The  possession  of  a  very  fine  col- 
lection of  ancient  bindings  has  enabled  M. 
Leon  Gruel  to  become  an  authority  on  the 
history  of  binding  and  to  make  researches 
which  took  shape  a  few  years  back  in  the 
"Manuel  historique  et  bibliographique  de 
l'amateur  des  relieurs."  This  book,  finely 
illustrated,  is  the  most  important  work  of 
reference  we  possess,  though  since  its  publi- 
cation, M.  Thoinan  and  others  have  writ- 
ten much  and  learnedly  on  the  subject. 

Besides  the  conduct  of  his  varied  and 
important  business,  of  which  he  became  sole 
head  and  representative  in  1891,  M.  Gruel 
finds  time  to  take  a  real  interest  in  the 
technical  education  of  the  coming  genera- 

125 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

tion  of  binders.  He  has  been  president  of 
the  Chambre  Syndicale  Patronale  des  Re- 
lieurs,  etc*,  since  its  foundation  in  1 891,  and 
it  is  through  the  genial  and  generous  attitude 
he  has  always  maintained  toward  his  brother 
binders,  as  well  as  through  his  disinterested 
labours,  that  it  is  now  established  on  a  thor- 
oughly sound  basis.  His  help  and  advice 
are  always  forthcoming  to  the  genuine  lover 
of  bindings,  and  the  present  brief  account 
of  what  is  being  done  in  Paris  at  the  present 
time  owes  its  existence  to  his  friendly  aid. 
Another  binder,  who,  together  with  M. 
Gruel,  may  be  said  to  form  a  connecting  link 
between  the  old  and  the  new,  is  M.  Henri 
Michel,  son  of  the  great  gilder  of  that  name. 
His  father,  born  in  1821,  made  his  first 
apprenticeship  at  Lyons,  but  came  to  Paris 
in  1838,  and  worked  for  a  short  time  in  the 
atelier  of  Reiss.  But  in  1839  he  went  to 
M.  Gruel,  where  he  remained  as  gilder  for 
ten  years,  getting  more  and  more  perfection 
of  touch  with  every  year  that  passed.  In 
1849,  ne  set  UP  f°r  himself,  and  from  that 

126 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

time  till  1876  he  worked  as  finisher  for  all 
the  chief  binders  in  Paris.  His  first  clients 
were  Duru  and  Cape,  but  very  soon  others 
followed,  till  his  employers  included  David, 
Hardy,  and  Chambolle,  Thibaron,  Cuzin, 
and  every  other  binder  of  note.  During 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  Jean 
Michel,  or  Marius  Michel,  as  he  by  that 
time  called  himself,  continued  to  put  forth 
the  most  exquisite  " tooling"  that  has  ever 
been  seen.  His  taste  was  excellent,  for 
while  at  that  period  there  was  no  idea  of 
invention  in  the  matter  of  design,  but  only 
of  copying  the  old  masters,  Marius  Michel 
went  straight  to  the  very  best  period  for  his 
inspiration.  The  great  unknown  designer 
of  the  Renaissance,  who  decorated  the  books 
of  Henri  II  was  his  master,  and  to  that  style, 
the  most  purely  classic  in  the  best  sense,  he 
kept  faithful  throughout  his  life.  Some  of 
his  best  work  is  in  the  library  at  Chantilly, 
for  the  Due  d'Aumale,  during  his  exile  un- 
der the  Empire,  entrusted  to  Cape  a  succes- 
sion of  books,  which,  gilt  by  Marius  Michel, 

127 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

constitute  the  former's  chief  title  to  fame. 
Unfortunately,  most  of  Marius  Michel's 
early  work  bears  only  the  name  of  the  binder 
who  employed  him,  but  after  a  time  ama- 
teurs demanded  his  signature  as  well,  and  the 
volumes  that  have  it  are  of  great  value  in 
consequence  of  their  limited  number. 
Michel  died  about  twelve  years  ago,  at  the 
age  of  seventy.  His  son,  Henri,  born  in 
1846,  went  into  the  workshops  at  sixteen, 
but  he  also  attended  the  lectures  at  the 
Ecole  des  Arts  Decoratifs,  which  have  ever 
rendered  much  service  to  French  industries. 
In  1866,  he  undertook  the  important  task 
of  making  tracings  for  his  father  of  all  the 
historic  bindings ;  and  he  gave  especial  study 
to  the  decoration  of  the  backs  that  were  in 
keeping  with  the  sides,  while  he  himself 
executed  many  of  the  most  important  backs 
for  his  father's  clients.  In  conjunction  with 
his  father,  he  wrote  two  important  works 
on  Binding,  the  first  serious  attempts  toward 
a  literature  of  the  subject.  These  were 
"La  Reliure  Fran9aise    depuis    l'invention 

128 


SOME     FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 


H|  * 
1   ' 

i  m 

Kyi 

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mm 

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I 

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1 

■ 

i  If? 

^S? 

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^^**W3^!»w»SB?55s 

A  BINDING  BY  MARIUS  MICHEL  FOR  GERARD  DE  NERVAL  S  "  SYLVIE 

de  rimprimerie  jusqu'a  la  fin  du  XVI I Ie 
siecle,"  and  "  La  Reliure  Fran£aise  commer- 
ciale  et  industrielle  depuis  l'invention  de 
rimprimerie  jusqu'a  nos  jours/'  published 
in  1880  and  i  88  i ,  respectively.  In  1889, 
he  published  "  L'ornamentation  des  reliures 


129 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

modernes,"  which  sets  forth,  with  admir- 
able clearness,  his  views  upon  design.  He 
was  the  first  to  advocate  novelty  of  treat- 
ment, and  to  deprecate  the  prevailing  fashion 
of  putting  facsimiles  of  the  great  masters  on 
every  book,  new  as  well  as  old.  He  shows 
that  the  distinction  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury binding  is  the  attempt  to  get  appropri- 
ateness of  design,  and  dares  even  to  find  it 
amiss  in  the  old  masters  that  they  clothed 
their  most  serious  as  well  as  their  lightest 
works  with  the  same  fashion  of  ornament. 
Such  a  point  of  view,  coming,  as  it  does, 
from  so  perfect  a  reproducer  of  past  chefs- 
d'oeuvre,  marks  an  era  in  the  modern  his- 
tory of  the  art.  Not  less  important  are  his 
remarks  on  the  servile  copying  of  patterns. 
The  artist  and  artisan  in  former  days  made 
his  careful  sketch  in  church  or  museum, 
till,  penetrated  with  the  spirit  of  that  which 
he  admired,  he  was  able  to  reproduce  at  will 
from  memory,  adding  at  the  same  time  a 
part  of  himself.  Now,  in  these  days  of 
cheap  reproduction,  everyone  buys  a  print 

130 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

or  photograph,  and  all  that  is  demanded  of 
the  workman  is  to  copy  it  with  slavish  ac- 
curacy. Thirty  years  ago  everything  was 
good  except  what  was  modern,  and  the  col- 
lector forgot,  that,  had  the  amateur  of  the 
past,  himself  a  collector  also,  not  appreciated 
the  best  that  was  modern  in  his  time,  some 
of  the  finest  traditions  in  art  could  never  have 
existed.  Neither  Mazarin  nor  Fouque 
made  Le  Gascon  copy  Grolier.  A  style  is 
not  made  in  a  day,  but  certainly  entire  pre- 
occupation with  the  past  will  do  much  to 
hinder  the  possibility  of  that  pressure  of 
taste  that  constitutes  a  style.  In  this  same 
treatise  he  insists  further  on  the  necessity  of 
not  mixing  different  motives,  of  keeping 
the  details  in  harmony  with  the  general 
scheme,  and  of  letting  the  main  idea  always 
remain  prominent,  instead  of  being  lost  in 
accessories.  The  binder,  too,  should  recog- 
nize the  natural  limitations  of  the  craft, 
and  abide  by  them.  He  should  not  attempt 
to  entrench  upon  other  arts,  nor  try  to  ex- 
press more  than  he  is  able  in  his  own  field. 

131 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

The  spirit  of  the  text  should  be  suggested 
in  colour  and  decoration,  but  the  direct 
imagery  of  material  motives  should  be  left 
to  the  gift  book  and  the  advertising  cover. 
It  must  be  said  that  M.  Michel  has  ex- 
emplified in  his  own  work  all  that  he  here 
lays  down  as  canons  of  taste.  He  set  the 
example  of  fresh  initiative  by  being  the 
first  to  employ  floral  motives  in  the  decora- 
tion of  his  bindings,  drawing  the  flowers  in 
the  first  instance  straight  from  nature  and 
subsequently  conventionalizing  them  for  the 
tool-cutter.  His  advice — to  leave  the  mak- 
ing of  copies  and  try  new  roads — has  been 
adopted  by  several  of  the  younger  men,  as 
we  shall  show  later,  but  the  restrictions  of 
taste  he  advocates  have,  in  some  cases,  not 
been  adopted,  and  the  bizarre  and  rococo 
are  apparently  thought  to  constitute  a  suffi- 
cient claim  to  originality. 

The  illustrations  here  given  of  M.  Mich- 
el's work  are  not  worthily  representative, 
but  twenty-six  of  his  best  books  are  repro- 
duced in  M.  Beraldi's   "  La  Reliure  du  XIXe 


132 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

siecle."  An  extremely  facile  and  versatile 
designer,  his  styles  are  numerous  and  always 
undergoing    fresh   developments.       Besides 


A  BINDING  BY  MARIUS  MICHEL  FOB  XAVIER  DE  MAISTRE  S 
"  VOYAGE  AUTOUR  DE  MA  CHAMBRE." 


those  already  alluded  to,  we  find  one  more 
recent,  showing  a  certain  reaction  against 
gold.  In  this  the  mosaics  are  executed  with 
fine  gradation  of  colour,  and  all  the  tooling  is 

133 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

blind.  In  some  of  the  mosaic  work,  in 
which  real  iridescence  of  colour  is  obtained, 
the  effects  are  got  by  staining.  But  every- 
where there  is  such  mastery  of  line  and 
curve,  such  perfect  feeling  for  tone  and  tint, 
as  well  as  such  exquisite  workmanship,  that 
gold  would  seem  but  a  vulgar  adjunct.  Some 
few  years  ago  M.  Michel  exhibited  a  case 
of  bindings  in  this  style  at  the  Champ  de 
Mars,  of  which  all  the  decoration  was  done 
by  his  own  hand.  His  influence  on  the 
most  modern  school  of  binding  has  been 
considerable,  as  it  may  well  be,  considering 
how  sound  he  is  as  a  theorist  and  how  in- 
spiring as  a  practitioner.  He  may  be  said 
to  have  fought  equally  for  novelty  of  ideas, 
the  restraint  of  a  fine  taste,  and  the  standard 
of  a  technique  entirely  above  reproach. 

For  some  time  after  1885  the  passion  for 
novelty  showed  itself  in  the  application  to 
binding  of  the  various  materials  employed 
at  the  period  prior  to  the  invention  of  print- 
ing— wood,  engraved  and  carved,  plaques  of 
metal    or    porcelain,   ivories,  enamels    and 

134 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

miniatures,  all  found  an  application  to  the 
book  covers  of  that  time.  But  by  the  ma- 
jority morocco  was  still  considered  the  ideal 
covering,  and  to  such  the  desire  for  a  new 
form  of  decoration  resulted  in  the  creation 
of  the  symbolic  binding.  This  idea  that  the 
decorative  outside  of  a  book  should  be  em- 
blematic of  what  is  within,  has  obtained  an 
extraordinary  success  in  France  and  is  es- 
pecially characteristic  of  the  last  part  of  this 
century.  Needless  to  say  that  the  idea  proved 
a  complete  snare  to  the  craftsman  who  was 
not  an  artist.  It  proved,  perhaps,  no  less  a  pit- 
fall to  the  imaginative,  the  wildness  of  whose 
fancy  was  their  only  stock  in  trade,  and  who 
considered  that  eccentricity  of  motive  could 
cover  any  amount  of  technical  inefficiency. 

While  advocating  novelty  of  treatment,  it 
was  against  this  exuberant  but  unrestrained 
effort  that  Marius  Michel  directed  part  of 
the  pamphlet  above  mentioned,  which  ap- 
peared shortly  before  the  exhibition  of  1889, 
and  brought  him  no  small  amount  of  unpop- 
ularity among  his  fellows.      It  did  not  take 

135 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

long  before  his  criticism,  coupled  with  the 
more  educated  taste  of  the  collector,  reduced 
the  emblematic  binding  to  comparatively 
reasonable  limits  ;  but  as  it  still  has  a  con- 
siderable hold  on  French  taste,  and  as  it  is 
achieved  with  more  or  less  success  by  cer- 
tain of  the  younger  generation  of  binders,  it 
may  be  well  to  examine  it  a  little  more  in 
detail. 

It  differs,  then,  from  the  older  methods 
both  in  invention  and  technique.  Instead  of 
the  same  kind  of  detail  being  worked  on 
almost  every  volume  alike,  if  not  in  the 
same  disposition,  we  get  an  attempt  to  make 
the  binding  symbolize  the  contents,  an  effort 
to  obtain  a  sort  of  allegorical  ornament,  suited 
to  that  particular  book  and  to  no  other.  But 
this  leads  in  some  cases  to  dangerous  results. 
In  order  to  produce  these  effects  the  tech- 
nique is  not  confined  to  the  old  lines,  but  the 
treatment  of  leather  is  forced  into  direc- 
tions to  which  it  does  not  naturally  lend  it- 
self. Some  of  the  modelled  leather  work,  for 
example,  attempts  to  give  effects  of  sculp- 

136 


SOME     FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

ture ;  some,  that  is  treated  in  mosaic,  to  go 
even  further  and  reproduce  the  art  of  the 
illustrator  ;  so  that  we  find  occasional  results 
like  the  bindings  of  Wiener,  which  resemble 
reduced  posters  more  than  anything  else. 

It  may  probably  be  said,  without  fear  of 
contradiction,  that  no  art  makes  any  genuine 
advance  by  going  outside  the  province  to 
which  it  is  restricted  by  its  material,  and  the 
application  of  that  material.  Attempts 
by  binders  to  invade  the  field  of  the  other 
decorative  arts,  even  if  they  are  allied  arts, 
will  never  really  satisfactorily  extend  the 
scope  of  their  own. 

May  we  not  possibly  go  a  step  further 
and  say  that  the  outside  should  certainly  not 
attempt  to  reveal  the  inside,  that  the  extrav- 
agance of  picture  bindings  are  a  mistake, 
and  that  the  allegory  of  the  decoration,  if 
there  is  one,  should  assuredly  not  be  such  that 
he  who  runs  can  read. 

Of  the  younger  generation  of  binders,  the 
innovators  of  their  day  who  strike  the  per- 
sonal note  in  what  they  undertake,  we  will 

137 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

first  mention  M.  Petrus  Ruban,  who,  born 
in  1857,  founded  his  business  in  1879  and 
gained  a  silver  medal  at  the  Exhibition  of 


"                       ,            -~—^-. ,,  '■".    .."" ' •** 

?                        ^-^ 

^   feSt I , 

Si' 

A   BINDING  BY   RUBAN 


the  Palais  de  P  Industrie  in  1886.  About 
ten  years  ago  he  started  the  special  kind  of 
binding  to  which  he  now  chiefly  devotes 
himself,  and  only  within  the  last  few  years 
has  he  signed  his  books  inside  with  name  and 

138 


SOME     FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

date — a  new  departure  that  he  considers 
marks  the  time  when  he  ceased  to  do  any  but 
the  most  highly  finished  work.  He  has  done 
work  in  each  of  what  we  may  for  convenience 
call  the  classic  and  symbolic  styles.  It  seemed 
for  some  time  as  if  he  intended  to  associate 
himself  entirely  with  the  latter,  and  his  in- 
laid morocco  bindings,  modelled  and  coloured 
by  hand  in  addition,  ranked  with  the  finest 
specimens  of  their  class.  But  he  seems  of 
late  to  have  returned  with  fresh  interest  to 
that  special  technique  of  the  binder — gold 
tooling — in  which  individual  genius  showed 
itself  during  the  best  period  of  the  art. 
That,  of  course,  need  not  be  disassociated 
from  inlay,  and  in  the  blending  of  harmon- 
ious tones  M.  Ruban  shows  a  most  delicate 
feeling  for  colour. 

In  the  binding  of  "H/EfFort,"  we  see  the 
almost  complete  range  of  his  technique,  and 
each  of  the  panels  has  some  of  the  inlaid 
and  modelled  work  with  which  his  earlier 
efforts  are  associated.  Another  illustration 
is  that  of  a  "doublure,"   more  simple  and 

139 


BOOKBINDERS  AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

in  the  opinion  of  many  more  attractive  by 
reason  of  the  fewer  elements  introduced. 
An  admirable  example  of  morocco,  mod- 
elled by  hand  in  relief,  with  little  or  no  gold, 
may  be  found  in  the  cover  of  a  fine  paper 
copy  of  the  celebrated  "  Histoire  des  quatre 
fils  d'Aymon,"  illustrated  by  Grasset,  and 
now  of  extreme  rarity.  The  foundation  is 
a  bronze-morocco  with  mosaics  of  different 
colours  that  blend  rather  than  contrast  with 
it,  and  all  the  work  is  "blind,"  with  the 
exception  of  a  little  dull  "old  gold"  in 
the  mosaics,  and  the  flowers  which  are  stud- 
ded with  brilliant  gold  dots.  This  book, 
like  the  work  of  M.  Marius  Michel,  some- 
what similar  in  character,  shows  how  mis- 
taken are  the  majority  who  think  no  binding 
decorated  unless  it  glistens  with  gold.  The 
methods  employed  in  this  kind  of  modelling, 
for  which  none  of  the  stamps  are  used  that 
constitute  the  "tools"  of  the  ordinary  fin- 
isher, may  perhaps  be  seen  better  on  a  copy 
of  Flaubert's  "  Coeur  Simple,"  where  a 
bronze  morocco  is  inlaid  with  naturalistic 

140 


AN  ELABORATE  BINDING  BY  RUBAN 


SOME     FRENCH     BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

flowers  of  different  colours  modelled  by  hand 
in  considerable  relief  and  also  without  gold. 
Another  style  is  found  on  a  doublure  of  a 


A  BINDING   BY   RUBAN  FOR  GERARD   DE  NERVAL  S  "  SYLVIE 


binding  of  "Sylvie"  by  Gerard  de  Nerval. 
The  outside  is  already  figured  in  Bouchot's 
"  De  la  Reliure,"  but  the  inside  is  given  here 
as  representative  of  a  very  attractive  vari- 
ation on  the  ordinary  mosaic.    The  convol- 

143 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

vulus  flowers  and  leaves  are  stained  and  shaded 
by  hand  on  a  cream-coloured  morocco  ground 
and  delicately  outlined  in  gold.   There  is  no 


A  DOUBLURE   BY    RUBAN 


inlay,  and  the  effect  is  excessively  dainty, 
though  slighter,  and  less  emphasized  than 
where  different  leathers  are  used.  The  cover 
is  of  the  tan-coloured  leather  known  as  La 


144 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

Valliere,  inlaid  with  small  flowers  of  a  pale 
green,  and  has  a  design  that,  gilt  three  times, 
according  to  French  custom  in  the  best 
houses,  took  forty-five  days  to  complete.  M. 
Ruban  is  known  for  the  care  with  which  he 
suits  his  designs  to  the  books  they  decorate, 
and  even  the  accessories  are  studied  in  the 
same  way,  the  brocaded  silks  that  he  employs 
as  "  ends  "  belonging  to  the  period  corre- 
sponding with  the  book.  His  work  is  well 
represented  in  M.  Beraldi's  book. 

In  connection  with  these  bindings  we 
may  draw  the  attention  of  the  reader  to 
what  seems  to  be  an  almost  universal  char- 
acteristic of  the  French  in  their  application 
of  floral  motives  to  design.  They  are  al- 
ways what  we  should  term  naturalistic; 
the  plant  retains  its  natural  growth,  it  is 
not  conventionalized,  that  is  to  say,  treated 
by  means  of  repetition,  alternation  and  sym- 
metry. There  is  either  a  representation 
of  the  plant  as  it  is  in  nature  or  else  the 
Japanese  arrangement  of  one  or  more  ele- 
ments   isolated     and     casually     introduced. 

H5 


BOOKBINDERS*  AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

Marius  Michel,  in  the  pamphlet  previously 
alluded  to,  expressly  states  that  the  plant- 
form  should  not  be  "stylisee,"  by  which  we 
presume  he  means  conventionalized,  but 
should  be  kept  close  to  nature,  though 
treated  with  simplicity.  We  know,  too, 
that  he  has  always  made  a  special  study  of 
plants  in  the  country  with  a  view  to  keep- 
ing this  closeness  to  nature  in  his  employ- 
ment of  them  for  his  own  decorative  work. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  mer- 
its of  this  theory,  but  a  constant  observation 
of  the  decorative  arts  in  France  will  force 
upon  one's  notice  the  fact  that  it  is  a  theory 
of  almost  universal  adoption  over  there. 

Charles  Meunier,  who  was  born  in  1866, 
was  apprenticed  to  Marius  Michel  for  a  very 
short  time,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty  set  up 
an  atelier  of  his  own.  He  threw  himself 
at  once  into  the  new  style  of  his  era,  the 
incised  and  coloured  leather  work,  which 
marks  the  picture  binding  we  have  spoken 
of  as  characteristic  of  the  younger  French 
school  for  the  last  ten  years.       For  a  short 

146 


A   BINDING   BY  RAPARLIER 


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SOME  ECCENTRICITIES   BY   MEUNIER 


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SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

time  he  confined  himself  very  largely  to 
half-bindings  for  the  backs  of  which  he  in- 
vented emblematic  decoration,  and  one  ex- 
ample of  his  work  shows  him  at  this  stage. 
In  incised  and  modelled  leather  he  has 
achieved  great  success,  and  several  applica- 
tions of  this  treatment  were  devoted  to 
the  "Trois  rils  d,Aymon.,,  For  this  book, 
profusely  illustrated  by  Grasset  and  brought 
out  with  all  the  luxury  of  print  and  paper 
that  the  publishers  could  command,  Meu- 
nier  has  designed  about  forty  covers.  It 
was  at  first  somewhat  of  a  failure,  being  too 
high  in  price  for  the  general  public,  and 
issued  in  too  large  an  edition  for  the  collec- 
tors of  rare  volumes.  But  Marius  Michel 
took  it  in  hand,  and  by  dint  of  sumptuous 
binding  managed  to  float  it  with  success. 
From  the  curious  character  of  the  illustra- 
tions by  Grasset,  full  of  a  strange  blending 
of  the  art  of  many  times  and  many  countries, 
the  book  lent  itself  surprisingly  to  that  em- 
blematic type  of  binding  then  in  full  fash- 
ion, and  to  the  new  technique  in  its  vari- 

149 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

ous  manifestations  that  carried  into  effect 
the  symbolism  of  the  designer.  Marius 
Michel  made  many  most  successful  experi- 
ments, and  when  he  refused  to  go  on  de- 
signing afresh  for  the  same  book,  Meunier 
was  appealed  to  with  the  result  above 
named.  On  this  work  there  may  be  found 
the  most  typical  and  satisfactory  instances 
of  nineteenth-century  binding,  the  majority 
being  in  the  incised  and  coloured  leather 
brought  to  such  perfection  by  Marius  Mi- 
chel and  by  Meunier. 

As  in  all  the  ateliers  described,  with  the 
exception  of  those  of  MM.  Gruel  and  Marius 
Michel,  the  personnel  of  the  establishment 
does  not  consist  of  more  than  three  or  four 
workers,  one  of  whom  is  a  son  of  M.  Cuzin 
and  a  promising  "  finisher."  For  such  con- 
ditions to  prevail  as  are  found  here  and  else- 
where in  Paris,  which  include  confidence  on 
the  part  of  the  master,  and  leisure  to  work 
without  pressure  on  the  part  of  his  subordi- 
nates, the  workman  must  be  worthy  of  his 
trust.   "  What  saves  France  in  her  industries 

i5o 


SOME     FRENCH     BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

at  the  present  time,"   said  one  of  the  great 
binders,  the  other  day,   "is  that  her  work- 


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A  BINDING   BV  RAPARLIER 


men  are  still  artists."  And  it  is  true,  whether 
French  taste  in  matters  of  art  coincides  with 
our  own,  or  is  often  at  variance  with  it,  the 
fact  remains,  that  the  majority  of  French 


151 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

workmen  have  the  conscience,  if  not  always 
the  inspiration,  of  the  artist. 

Romain  Raparlier  was  the  most  enthusi- 
astic innovator  and  the  boldest  in  his  devia- 
tions from  the  traditions  of  the  craft.  "  Le 
genre  Raparlier  "  consists  in  representing  on 
the  cover  of  a  volume  some  typical  subject 
or  scene  in  the  book,  by  an  entirely  original 
process.  The  book,  after  being  covered  in 
morocco,  has  the  design  roughly  modelled 
on  it  by  means  of  small  sculptor's  tools  made 
in  metal  instead  of  boxwood.  These  tools 
are  heated,  by  which  means  the  leather  is 
slightly  burnt  and  shadowed  in  greater  or  less 
degree.  Inlays  of  other  colours  are  then  ap- 
plied of  various  thicknesses,  according  to  the 
relief  required,  and  the  modelling  proceeds, 
the  whole  being  kept  very  wet  until  it  is 
sufficiently  worked  up.  A  certain  amount 
of  acid  or  colouring  matter  is  added,  if  re- 
quired, to  give  vigour  to  the  design,  which, 
when  completed,  is  perfectly  hard  and  can 
be  subjected  to  the  ordinary  pressure.  M. 
Raparlier  was  a  pupil  of  the  Ecole  des  Beaux 

152 


SOME     FRENCH     BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 


AN    EFFECT    BY    RAPARLIER 


Arts,  and  only  a  thorough  training  in  design 
and  modelling  could  possibly  give  the  ability 
for  this  sort  of  work,  which  is  more  allied 
to  sculpture  than  to  anything  else  one  can 
think  of.  The  designs  on  each  side  of  the 
cover  are  always  different  and  not  one  is  ever 
repeated.      The  artist's   exhibit  at   the  Ex- 


153 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

position  Internationale  du  Livre  in  1892, 
for  which  he  obtained  a  gold  medal,  attracted 
much  curious  attention  on  account  of  its 
undoubted  originality,  and  of  the  obvious 
artistic  feeling  shown  in  the  harmony  of 
colour  displayed  throughout.  Born  at  Paris 
in  1857  he  died  prematurely  in  1900.  No 
doubt  in  time  the  bizarre  and  rococo  would 
have  appealed  to  him  less  if  his  clients  had 
not  continued  to  demand  the  "  genre  Rapar- 
lier "  in  its  most  extreme  manifestations. 
His  technique  is  both  novel  and  interesting, 
and  might  with  advantage  be  applied  to  a 
more  restrained  and  classical  style. 

We  have  been  dealing  hitherto  with 
binding  of  a  special  class — morocco  work 
hand-tooled  in  all  its  variety — but  it  would 
not  be  fair  to  close  this  account  of  modern 
French  binders  without  mentioning  a  type 
of  binding  which  the  French  have  made 
peculiarly  their  own,  and  which  is  now  as- 
sociated with  the  name  of  M.  E.  Carayon. 
This  is  known  as  "cartonnage  a  la  Bradel." 
Supposed  to  be  of  German  origin,  it  bears 

'54 


SOME     FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

the  name  of  the  binder  who  first  adopted  it 
in  France.      It  has  always  been  considered 


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A  BINDING  BY   RAPARLIER  FOR   •■  HERODIAS 


as  binding  of  a  purely  provisional  nature  for 
books  which  it  was  proposed  at  some  time 
or  another  to  habit  in  a  more  costly  man- 

155 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

ner.  The  main  features  of  such  a  binding 
are  that  the  sections  are  not  "  sawn  in  "  at 
the  back  and  remain  intact,  being  sewed  up- 
on ribbon,  that  the  edges  are  left  untouched 
by  the  plough,  and  that  the  boards  of  the 
book  instead  of  being  made  one  with  the 
back  and  being  fixed  in  the  joint,  are  re- 
moved a  certain  distance  from  the  back, 
leaving  a  hollow  in  which  the  covering  of 
paper,  silk  or  vellum  is  impressed.  This 
hollow  is  peculiarly  suited  to  vellum  work 
on  account  of  its  stiffness,  but  not  less  to 
thin  materials  from  the  opposite  reason  that 
these  are  liable  to  give  way  at  the  hinge, 
when  the  board  works  sharply,  as  it  does  in 
the  ordinary  mode  of  binding.  M.  Cara- 
yon's  work  has,  then,  for  its  aim  the  preser- 
vation of  the  book,  so  that  it  loses  none  of 
its  value  on  changing  hands,  and  the  pur- 
chaser gets  it  in  exactly  the  same  state  as 
when  it  was  first  issued.  It  may  be  men- 
tioned in  passing  that  this  is  the  only  style 
which  the  French  allow  to  open  perfectly 
flat,  the  only  really    comfortable    form   of 

156 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

binding  we  get  from  them,  but  that  is  a 
natural  idiosyncrasy  which  it  seems  that  we 
must  accept. 

Carayon,  born  in  1843,  started  in  life  as 
a  soldier,  continued  as  a  decorative  painter, 
and  chance  having  made  him  subsequently 
take  to  binding,  he  has  ever  since  found 
consolation  for  chronic  rheumatism,  which 
completely  disables  him,  in  a  love  of  books 
and  a  real  passion  for  all  the  details  of  deli- 
cate and  exquisite  binding.  The  choice 
editions  of  M.  Pelletan,  a  publisher  who  is 
perhaps  more  of  an  artist  than  any  other  in 
Paris,  have  provided  plenty  of  material  for 
the  painted  vellum  covers  which  is  one  of 
the  styles  that  Carayon  has  made  and  kept 
entirely  his  own.  It  is  this  style  that  we 
have  chosen  for  reproduction,  but  unfortu- 
nately it  is  very  difficult  to  reproduce  from 
the  extreme  fineness  of  the  line  work 
and  the  equally  delicate  character  of  the 
colouring.  Pen  and  ink  sketches  and  water 
colour  drawings  have  been  made  by  well- 
known    artists  such  as   A.  Robaudi,   Louis 

159 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

Morin,  and  Henriot  on  the  vellum  covers  he 
has  prepared  for  the  purpose,  and  thus  will 
go  down  to  future  generations  as  some  of 
the  most  important  book  treasures  of  the 
time.  He  is  the  only  binder  who  has  suc- 
ceeded in  his  treatment  of  vellum  in  keep- 
ing the  spotless  freshness  which  constitutes 
its  chief  charm.  To  the  exhibition  of  bind- 
ings at  Brussels  he  contributed  not  less  than 
eighty  volumes. 

The  nature  of  M.  Carayon's  work  enables 
him  to  use  all  varieties  of  material  that  the 
most  eccentric  amateur  can  imagine ;  quaint, 
old-fashioned  papers  and  cloths,  silk  brocades, 
snake  and  crocodile  skins,  Japanese  leathers, 
with  their  striking  colours  and  curious 
designs.  These  reliures  de  fantaisie,  in  whole 
or  half  bindings,  are  of  endless  diversity,  and 
are  carried  out  with  great  taste  and  with  a 
delicate  freshness  of  handling  that  finds  no 
parallel  elsewhere.  M.  Carayon  does  plenty 
of  morocco  work  as  well,  gilt  by  skilful  fin- 
ishers, but  even  then  it  is  always  put  through 
in  the  same  way,  the  book  left   untouched 

1 60 


SOME    FRENCH    BINDERS    OF    TO-DAY 

and  the  boards  not  laced  in.  His  varied 
exhibit  at  the  Exposition  de  Livre  in  1892 
gained  for  him  a  gold  medal.  Such  work, 
it  is  needless  to  say,  can  be  entrusted  to  but 
few  hands  and  those  carefully  and  leisurely 
trained  to  delicate  manipulations,  and  the 
workman  who  has  been  the  shortest  time 
with  M.  Carayon  has  been  helping  him  for 
more  than  fifteen  years. 

We  cannot  do  better  than  quote  his  own 
explanation  of  his  success,  a  success,  it  may 
be  added,  not  sufficiently  recognised  outside 
his  own  country :  "  Le  secret  de  mes  succes, 
c'est  tout  simplement  que  je  suis  un  amour- 
eux  du  livre,  que  mon  metier  me  plait,  et 
que  je  ne  saurais  a  aucun  prix  massacrer  un 
volume,  fut  il  le  plus  infime." 

It  may  seem  to  some  a  very  trivial  matter 
to  observe  the  eternal  warfare  between  the 
classics  and  the  moderns  carried  out  upon 
this  miniature  battlefield  of  the  decoration 
of  book  covers.  But  it  is  really  of  interest 
not  only  to  the  book  lover  with  whose  spe- 
cial province  it  deals,  but  to  the  interested 

161 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

observer  of  all  progressive  movements,  for 
it  is  but  another  instance  of  an  oft-repeated 
fact  that  no  department  of  art  or  letters  es- 
capes that  collision  from  time  to  time  in  its 
evolutionary  development,  and  that  from 
such  shock  of  alternating  principles  vitality 
most  surely  ensues. 


EARLY   STAMPED    BINDINGS 


VI 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

MAY  as  well  state  at  the 
beginning  of  this  paper  that 
I  have  a  distinct  object  in 
writing  it.  It  is  to  call  the 
attention  of  those  who  have 
under  their  control  commercial  orpubHshers' 
bindings  to  the  way  in  which  that  class  of 
work  was  decorated  in  the  early  days  of 
books  and  bindings.  In  fact,  I  hold  a  brief 
on  this  occasion  for  the  stamp  or  block, 
worked  in  a  press  and  not  by  hand. 

It  is  very  much  the  fashion  now  a  days 
to  speak  slightingly  of  all  work  that  is 
not  done  by  the  hand.  The  craftsman  is 
in  fashion,  and  to  say  that  a  thing  is 
stamped   is,  to   many   persons,   synonymous 

165 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

with  saying  that  it  is  inferior,  and  not  worth 
the  consideration  of  those  who  have  taste 
and  can  distinguish  good  things  from  bad. 
The  hand  of  the  worker  must,  it  is  consid- 
ered, be  traced  on  all  the  details  of  his  work, 
or  else  it  is  unworthy  of  notice. 

Now  I  consider  this  to  be  a  mistake. 
The  hand  of  the  craftsman  is  very  well  if 
it  is  also  the  hand  of  the  artist,  but  it  is  far 
better,  in  my  humble  opinion,  to  have,  as 
decoration  for  certain  purposes,  stamped 
work  designed  by  an  artist  but  mechani- 
cally produced,  than  to  see  the  irregulari- 
ties which  are  supposed,  and  often  supposed 
rightly,  to  give  value  to  hand  work,  when 
they  are  associated  with  decoration  that  is 
meanly  conceived. 

A  few  remarks  may  be  acceptable  by 
way  of  preparation  for  the  study  of  the 
particular  class  of  bindings  dealt  with  in 
this  paper. 

We  are  occupied,  then,  to-day,  with  the 
second  stage  in  the  history  of  books  and 
their  makers,  the  stage  of  the  gradual  mul- 

166 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

tiplication  of  manuscripts  through  the  uni- 
versities and  the  encouragement  they  gave 
to  learning,  and  of  the  earliest  printed 
books.  The  first  stage  is  naturally  that  of 
the  earlier  manuscripts,  when  these  were 
comparatively  few  in  number  and  as  far  as 
binding  is  concerned,  remained  undeco- 
rated  ;  unless,  when  containing  the  manu- 
scripts of  the  Gospels  or  the  service  books 
of  the  church  they  were  clothed  sumptu- 
ously with  all  the  art  of  the  goldsmith  and 
the  jeweler. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century 
the  church  was  gradually  ceasing  to  be  the 
centre  of  enlightenment,  and  it  is  to  the 
newly  organised  universities  that  we  now 
turn  for  the  control  of  the  higher  education 
and  the  diffusion  of  knowledge.  The  term 
stationarii  first  appears  in  Bologna  in  1259, 
and  it  was  their  function  to  manifold  and 
keep  in  stock  a  sufficient  number  of  manu- 
scripts authorized  by  the  university  and  to 
hire  them  out  to  students.  It  is  on  these 
manuscripts  that  the  earliest  stamped  bind- 

167 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

ings  are  found.  When  the  universities  ex- 
panded, the  custom  gradually  grew  up  of 
purchasing  instead  of  hiring  the  texts,  and 
the  stationarii  developed  into  librarii.  They 
were  under  the  strict  censorship  of  the 
university,  who  fixed  their  commissions  and 
controlled  the  circulation  of  their  wares. 

The  first  of  the  stamped  bindings  here 
illustrated  prevailed  from  the  twelfth  to 
the  fifteenth  centuries  and  disappeared 
shortly  after  the  introductionof  goldtooling. 
The  earliest  are  of  course  on  manuscripts, 
but  the  later  ones  are  on  what  we  should 
call  in  these  days  publishers'  bindings  and 
are  on  the  early  printed  books. 

They  do  not  belong  to  any  one  country 
in  particular  but  are  to  be  found  every- 
where except  in  Italy,  whose  ungilt  bindings 
corresponding  to  that  period  were  the 
"  cable  "  or  "rope-work  "  patterns  of  which 
I  have  spoken  in  another  paper. 

The  earliest  stamped  bindings  were  with- 
out gold  and  are  the  earliest  forms  of  orna- 
mented leather  covers.      The  decoration  is 

168 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

composed  of  dies,  in  many  instances  of  great 
beauty,  and  the  earliest  of  all  are  of  a  very 
simple   character. 

Mr.  W.  H.  James  Weale,   from  his  re- 


DURHAM    BINDING    OF    THE    TWELFTH    CENTURY 

searches  among  the  cathedral  and  conven- 
tual libraries  of  Europe,  has  elicited  the 
fact  that  in  the  twelfth  century  England 
was  at  the  head  of  all  foreign  nations  as 
regards  these  bindings. 

Winchester,   London,    Durham,    Oxford 
169 


BOOKBINDERS   AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

and  York  all  produced  stamped  bindings  of 
great  merit.  This,  of  course,  is  a  very  inter- 
esting point  to  us,  who  have  to  admit  that, 
as  regards  gold-tooled  bindings,  Italy  was  at 
first  preeminent  and  subsequently  France. 


DURHAM    BINDING    OK    THE    TWELFTH    CENTURY 

In  the    twelfth   century,   then,    England 
had  a  distinct  school  of  binding  that  even  * 
influenced  foreign  art,  for    the    stamps  on  |f 
certain    Durham    manuscripts    sent    abroad 
were  imitated  there. 

170 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

Durham,  says  Mr.  E.  Gordon  Duff,  was 
especially  noteworthy  for  the  style  of  bind- 
ing, and  there  are  still  preserved  in  its 
cathedral  library  a  series  of  books  bound 
for  Bishop  Pudsey,  toward  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century — perhaps  the  finest  monu- 
ments of  this  class  of  work  in  existence. 
The  sides  of  these  book  covers  were  tooled 
with  a  number  of  small  stamps  or  dies  of 
various  shapes,  cut  in  intaglio  so  as  to  leave 
an  impression  like  a  seal,  the  exact  opposite 
of  the  procedure  in  gold  tooling.  These 
stamps,  in  themselves  of  much  beauty  and 
delicacy,  were  arranged  formally  but  with 
great  variety  and  a  fine  sense  of  effect. 

On  the  great  Bible  in  four  volumes 
which  Bishop  Pudsey  had  written  and  bound 
for  him  in  the  Benedictine  house  overlook- 
ing the  Wear,  no  less  than  fifty-one  dies 
are  used,  twenty-seven  of  which  occur  on 
the  first  volume  alone.  They  represent  men 
on  horseback,  birds,  beasts  and  fishes  and 
fabulous  animals  of  many  descriptions. 
Formal   flower   patterns  are  found  as  well, 

171 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

and  the  interlaced  chain  work  we  mostly 
associate  with  early  Venetian  books.  We 
do  not  know  for  certain  how  these  dies 
were  worked,  but  they  were  probably  built 
up  in  a  frame,  and  not  impressed  separately. 

It  is  always  difficult  to  get  satisfactory 
reproductions  of  ungilt  bindings,  and  the 
fact  that  these  early  books  are  much  worn 
naturally  increases  the  difficulty.  The  first 
two  illustrations  are  from  the  Durham  books 
just  described.  In  all  known  examples  of 
this  early  English  work,  an  outer  border  of 
lines  of  stamps  formed  a  parallelogram,  the 
centre  being  filled  either  with  other  paral- 
lelograms or  circles  or  segments  of  circles. 
This  use  of  a  circular  ornament,  says  Mr. 
Duff,  was  so  common  that  some  of  the  dies 
were  cut  wider  at  the  top  than  at  the  bot- 
tom, like  the  stones  in  the  arch  of  a  bridge, 
so  that  when  fitted  side  by  side  they  would 
form  circles  or  parts  of  a  circle,  and  in  the 
same  way  many  of  the  oblong  dies  were 
curved. 

From  the  twelfth  century  onwards,  there 
172 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 


% 


DIAGRAMS  SHOWING  ARRANGEMENT  OF  ORNAMENT  ON  THE  DURHAM   BOOKS 

were,  no  doubt,  professional  binders  other 
than  monks,  though  there  was  no  organized 
trade  association  of  the  kind  in  England 
till  the   beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century, 


173 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

when  there  was  in  London  a  guild  of  text- 
writers — or  limners,  as  they  were  called — 
and  binders;  and  in  1422  the  two  crafts 
were  enrolled  as  separate  guilds.  In  Ger- 
many, France  and  the  Netherlands  trade 
guilds  were  far  more  highly  organized,  and 
it  is  to  the  Netherlands  that  we  must  turn 
for  the  chief  further  developments  in  this 
class  of  stamped  bindings.  For  in  England, 
after  the  Durham  and  Winchester  work, 
there  was  little  of  importance  done  for  some 
two  centuries,  owing  to  the  degradation  of 
the  monasteries  and  the  decline  of  scho- 
lastic literature. 

The  next  development  in  the  history  of 
stamped  bindings  was  initiated  by  the  Neth- 
erlands. The  invention  of  the  panel  stamp 
about  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century 
was  an  important  one,  for  it  enabled  the 
side  of  a  small  book  to  be  decorated  at 
once.  After  the  invention  of  printing  in 
1454  it  became  of  almost  universal  applica- 
tion to  the  small  books  that  came  to  be 
issued  in    increasing  numbers.      The  strict- 

174 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

ness  of  the  Netherlandish  trade  guilds  en- 
abled the  binder  to  protect  both  his  trade 
mark  and  his  designs — a  privilege  we  may 
well  envy  in  these  days  of  unacknowledged 
pilfering. 

Printing,  after  its  first  discovery,  spread 
quickly  over  the  whole  of  Europe,  as  the 
dates  of  the  establishment  of  the  various 
printing  presses  show.  Beginning  in  Ger- 
many in  1454,  it  reached  Italy  in  1465, 
carried  thither  by  Germans.  It  is  to  be 
found  in  Paris  and  the  Low  Countries  about 
1470,  and  in  England  a  few  years  later, 
Caxton's  Press  being  set  up  in  1477. 

Thus  the  multiplication  of  books  took 
place  very  rapidly,  and  with  the  increase  in 
their  number  came  certain  very  obvious  and 
necessary  modifications  in  their  binding, 
which  we  may  summarize  thus  : — 

Firstly.  It  became  no  longer  possible  to 
give  them  costly  coverings,  such  being  re- 
served henceforth  for  devotional  or  other 
books  of  a  special  character. 

Secondly.   It  was  necessary  to  produce  bind- 

*75 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

ings  more  speedily,  and  after  this  period  they 
fell  naturally  into  two  divisions  —  trade 
bindings  and  private  bindings.  For,  while 
in  the  very  earliest  times  of  printing  the 
printer  was  also  a  stationer  and  bookseller, 
and  in  the  latter  capacity  bound  his  own 
books,  the  two  trades  naturally  soon  became 
distinct.  The  binding  was  then  done  en- 
tirely by  the  stationer-bookseller,  to  whom 
the  printer  supplied  copies  of  his  books  in 
sheets.  Thus  trade  bindings,  between  1500 
and  1550,  become  an  important  series,  for 
the  stationer -booksellers,  besides  binding 
specially  for  private  collectors,  issued  a  cer- 
tain number  of  books  in  coverings  of  their 
own  invention. 

Thirdly.  With  the  invention  by  Aldus  of 
the  smaller  size  of  book,  wooden  boards 
were  no  longer  essential,  and  Aldus,  himself, 
was  the, first  to  disuse  them.  Boards  made  of 
paper  or  vellum  pasted  together  under 
great  pressure  now  took  the  place  of  wood. 

With  the  introduction  of  printing,  manu- 
scripts ceased  to  retain  their  former  value, 

176 


-•.':'-•.-•     .'•'.*   -V>^^-#3 


BINDING    BY    BOLLCAERT 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

and  many  were  ruthlessly  destroyed  to  make 
the  boards  for  the  new  bindings.  The  most 
valuable  vellum  sheets  were  used  for  the 
purpose,  and  by  soaking  these  boards  very 
important  information  concerning  early 
manuscripts  has  since  been  discovered. 

A  little  later,  we  find  the  same  thing 
repeated  with  the  cast-off  sheets  of  the 
printer  used  in  the  same  way  to  make 
boards  for  the  binder,  and  thus,  again,  many 
valuable  links  in  the  chain  of  evidence  con- 
cerning our  early  printers  have  been  brought 
to  light. 

The  panel  stamp  was  developed  in  dif- 
ferent ways  according  to  the  genius  of  the 
country  that  adopted  it.  In  the  Nether- 
lands it  is  generally  formal,  and  the  accom- 
panying illustration  represents  a  very  usual 
type.  The  spirals  of  foliage  contain  birds  or 
beasts  of  a  grotesque  kind,  and  round  the 
edge  of  the  panel  runs  a  motto  or  text  with 
which  is  associated  the  name  of  the  binder. 
In  this  way  have  come  down  to  us  the  names 
of  Ludovicus  Bloc,  Johannes  Bollcaert,  Joris 

179 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

deGavere,  MartinusVulcanius,  and  others  in 
such  legends  as  the  following: 


mm 


■•■I  :^.-v*$ 


.  ■  \ 


■ 


4t>. 


PANEL    STAMP    OF    THE    BAPTISM    OF    CHRIST 

"  I,  Ludovicus  Bloc,  bound  this  book 
honestly  to  the  praise  of  Christ";  "  Joris 
de  Gavere  bound  me  in   Ghent ;   let  all   the 

1 80 


EARLY    STAMPED     BINDINGS 

holy  angels  and  archangels  of  God  pray  for 
us";   "Be  diligent  although  you  can  look 


PANEL    STAMP    OF    ST.     GEORGE    AND    THE    DRAGON 


at  the  art  of  Martinus  Vulcanius.,>  Our  ex- 
ample is  on  a  book  by  Johannes  Bollcaert 
with  the  legend  :   "  To  the  glory  of  Christ, 


181 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 


FRENCH    PANEL   STAMP 


I,  Johannes   Bollcaert,  honestly  bound  this 
book." 

The  pictorial  panel  stamp  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  in  favor  ii\  the  Netherlands 
so  much  as  in  France,  but  there  are  some 
specimens     of    extremely    fine     execution. 


[82 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

One  in  particular  has  the  initials  B.  K.  and 
on  one  side  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi  and 
on  the  other  the  Annunciation.  Other 
Netherlandish  panel  stamps  represent  the 
entry  into  Jerusalem,  the  scourging  of 
Christ,  the  baptism  of  Christ,  and  St. 
George  and  the  Dragon. 

In  France  pictorial  stamps  were  of  great 
variety  and  occasionally  of  great  beauty. 
The  best  known  are  the  acorn  stamps  of 
Jehan  Norins,  and  two  others  by  him  rep- 
resenting the  vision  of  the  Emperor  Augus- 
tus (ara  coeli)  and  St.  Bernard  with  a  bor- 
der containing  the  Sibyls,  all  signed  either 
with  initials  or  with  his  name  in  full. 
Andre  Boule  used  panels  of  the  Crucifixion 
and  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Sebastian,  the 
latter  subject  being  used  by  many  other 
binders  as  well. 

The  number  of  fine  French  panel  stamps 
is  very  large  and  a  most  interesting  illus- 
trated monograph  could  be  made  on  them 
and  on  the  Netherlandish  bindings  of  the 
same  character.     Unfortunately  they  do  not 

183 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

reproduce  well  in  process  work,  for  the  relief 
is  naturally  much  worn ;  but  when  shown 
in  a  lantern  they  are  far  more  effective  than 
might  be  supposed. 

The  Norman  binders  of  Rouen  and  Caen 
produced  many  stamps  of  English  design,  in 
consequence  of  the  large  number  of  service 
books  that  they  doubtless  bound  as  well  as 
printed  for  the  English  market.  The  names 
have  come  down  to  us  of  Jean  Moulin, 
who  used  panels  of  a  strikingly  decorative 
kind,  some  seven  or  eight  of  which  are  in 
existence  containing  a  punning  allusion  to 
his  name  of  "  Miller,' '  J.  Richard,  J.  Hu- 
vin,  R.  Mace,  who  used,  among  others,  a 
panel  of  the  Annunciation,  and  Denis  Roce, 
whose  bindings  contain  figures  of  four 
&**t-  saints  ;  the  names  of  all  these  binders  ex- 
cept  the  last  are  to  be  found  upon  the  covers. 

Among  the  many  fine  French  stamps 
which  well  deserve  a  more  exhaustive 
treatment  than  they  have  hitherto  received, 
one  stands  out  preeminent  for  beauty  and  a 
classic  treatment  of  an  oft-repeated  motive. 

184 


> 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

It  is   that  of  Alexandre   Alyat,   a  Paris  sta- 
tioner   of  about    1500,   who   used  a  large 


BINDING    BY    JEHAN    NORINS 


stamp  with  the  figure  of  Christ  and  the 
emblems  of  the  Passion.  It  may  be  seen 
on  a  book  in  the  Aberdeen  University 
Library.       Stamps    with     this     figure     are 


185 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

always  known  as  the  Image  of  Pity,  and  to 
my  mind  this  example  is  quite  the  most 
beautiful  of  all  that  are  extant. 

It  must,  of  course,  be  borne  in  mind  that 


PANEL    OF    THE    IMAGE  OF    PITY 


all  these  stamped  bindings  after  the  mid- 
dle of  the  fifteenth  century,  were  trade 
bindings,  necessitated  by  the  invention  of 
printing  and  consequent  multiplication  of 
books. 

186 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

In  the  earliest  days  after  that  invention, 
as  has  been  mentioned  the  printer  was 
sometimes  a  stationer  and  bookseller  as  well, 
and  in  that  capacity  bound  his  own  books ; 
very  soon,  however,  the  two  trades  became 
distinct  and  binding  was  done  by  the  sta- 
tioner alone. 

Rich  private  collectors,  however,  con- 
tinued to  have  their  books  bound  espe- 
cially for  them ;  but  the  stamped  work  on 
printed  books  under  present  consideration 
was  entirely  upon  trade  bindings. 

We  must  not  omit  to  mention  German 
ungilt  bindings  of  this  period  of  which 
there  were  two  distinct  styles,  /.  e.  cuir 
bouilli  and  stamped  work.  Before  the  fif- 
teenth century,  the  most  noteworthy  bind- 
ings produced  by  Germany  were  the  hand- 
tooled  leather  ones ;  particularly  those 
worked  in  a  process  called  cuir  bouilli,  in 
which  the  leather  was  first  cut  with  a  knife 
and  then  raised  in  relief;  later  on  the  back- 
ground was  diapered  down  to  cause  the 
relief,     but    in    the    real    cuir    bouilli    the 

187 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

leather  was    always  cut   first.      Nuremberg 
was  especially  celebrated  for  these  wrought 


POSTILLA  FRATRIS  THOME  DE  AQUINO  IN  JOB.        ESSLINGEN,    1474 

leather  bindings;  many  of  which  were  of 
great  artistic  effect,  and  no  two  of  which 
were  exactly  alike.      Two  examples  of  cuir 

1 88 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

bouilli,  a  technique  that  has  been  much  re- 
produced  of  late  and  particularly    by    M. 
Gruel  of  Paris,  are  given  in  illustration. 
One  is  on  a  book  printed  at  Esslingen  in 


RAINERIUS  DE  PISA,   PANTHEOLOGIA.        BASLE,    I475 


1474.  Mr.  Weale  states  that  the  repre- 
sentations of  animals  on  this  binding  are 
copied  from  those  on  the  playing-cards 
engraved  by  the  master  E.  S.  of  1466.  The 
other  is  on  a  Pantheologia  by  Rainerius  de 

189 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

Pisa,  Basle,  1475,  a  most  beautiful  specimen 
of  this  cut  work,  and  both  are  in  the  British 
Museum. 

The  first  German  stamped  leather  bind- 
ings after  the  fifteenth  century  generally 
had  their  ornament  planned  on  a  frame- 
work of  intersecting  vertical  and  horizontal 
bands,  the  field  within  being  divided  by 
ruled  diagonal  lines  into  lozenge-shaped 
compartments. 

"Among  the  most  important  binders  of 
Germany  at  this  time,"  says  Mr.  E.  Gordon 
Duff,  "  is  John  Richenbach  of  Geislingen. 
His  bindings — as  a  rule,  of  white  pigskin — 
are  dated  from  1467  onwards,  and  bear 
full  inscriptions  of  his  name  as  binder,  date 
of  binding  and  very  often  the  name  of  the 
person  for  whom  the  book  was  bound. 
Johannes  Vogel  used  some  delicate  stamps, 
amongst  them  a  curious  half-length  figure 
playing  on  a  lute.  He  bound  the  copy  of 
the  Mazarin  Bible  now  in  Eton  College 
Library,  and  also  another  copy  of  the  same 
book  sold  at  the  Brayton  Ives  sale  in  New 

190 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

York.  Anthony  Koburger  of  Nuremberg, 
one  of  the  most  important  printers  and 
stationers  of  the  fifteenth  century,  bound 
his  books  in  a  very  distinctive  manner.  He 
gave  up  the  use  of  small  dies  and  covered 
the  side  with  a  design  made  up  of  large 
tools."  He  also  painted  the  title  of  the 
book  in  gold  upon  the  top  of  the  obverse 
cover.  Unfortunately  it  is  impossible  to 
reproduce  any  of  these  pigskin  books,  for, 
yellow  with  age,  they  present  no  contrast 
whatever  in  photography. 

We  must  pass  on  to  the  account  of  the 
panel  stamp  in  England,  to  which  likewise 
the  previous  remarks  as  to  trade  bindings 
apply.  With  the  introduction  of  printing 
into  England,  there  was  a  great  influx  of 
foreign  craftsmen,  so  that  the  distinctive 
style  of  English  work,  which  we  saw  in  the 
earlier  centuries  on  the  Durham  books,  was 
destroyed. 

From  the  Low  Countries,  the  Rhenish 
towns,  Normandy  and  Paris,  there  came  a 
constant  stream  of  printer-stationers,  from 

i9i 


BOOKBINDERS    AND     THEIR    CRAFT 

the  reign  of  Richard  III  (1484)  onwards. 
At  first  they  paid  only  periodical  visits  to 
London,  Oxford,  Cambridge,  York,  and 
towns  of  importance,  but  seeing  business 
prospects  were  good,  they  took  up  their 
abode  in  England.  They  even  brought  with 
them  their  stamps,  and  carried  out  their 
work  according  to  the  traditions  of  their 
own  guild. 

Books  bound  during  the  reign  of  Henry 
VII  and  the  earlier  part  of  Henry  VIII  are 
decorated  according  to  the  German,  Nether- 
landish or  Norman  fashion.  Many  foreign 
stamps  were  bought  and  brought  over  after 
the  death  of  their  owner  ;  others- were  prob- 
ably engraved  abroad  for  the  English  market. 
Caxton  when  he  returned  to  England  from 
Bruges  in  1476  and  hired  a  shop  in  the 
Sanctuary  at  Westminster,  no  doubt  brought 
his  stamps  with  him,  and  used  them  in  the 
style  which  he  had  learned  abroad.  His  bind- 
ings, always  of  leather,  were  ruled  with  diag- 
onal lines  and  the  diamond-shaped  compart- 
ments   filled  with    stamps   of  dragons   and 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

flowers,  very  similar  to  a  stamp  used  by  a  con- 
temporary binder  at  Bruges.  Unfortunately 
very  few  of  his  books  have  come  down  to  us 
in  their  original  covers.  Upon  his  death, 
1495,  these  stamps  passed  to  his  successor 
Wynkyn  de  Worde,  who  used  them  till  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

At  Oxford  only  does  there  seem  to  have 
been  any  work  of  distinctively  English 
character.  At  the  early  Press  then  under 
the  direction  of  Theodore  Rood  of  Cologne 
in  partnership  with  Thomas  Hunte  an 
English  stationer,  we  get  the  dies  of  foreign 
design  and  supplied  possibly  by  Rood,  com- 
bined after  the  manner  of  the  Winchester 
and  Durham  bindings  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury. 

In  1484  Richard  III,  who,  while  Duke 
of  Gloucester  had  encouraged  printing,  pro- 
vided that  no  statute  should  act  as  a  hind- 
rance for  bringing  into  the  country  "any 
manner  of  books  written  or  imprinted. " 
This  act  further  encouraged  the  influx  of 
foreign  printers  and  remained   in  force  till 

193 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

the  twenty-fifth  year  of  Henry  VIII's  reign, 
1534,  when  it  was  repealed  and  another 
Act  passed  forbidding  any  but  English  sub- 
jects to  sell  bound  books  within  the  realm. 
The  result  of  this  was  that  a  great  many 
foreign  craftsmen  obtained  letters  of  natur- 
alization and  remained  in  the  country. 

We  cannot  tell  exactly  when  the  panel 
stamp  was  introduced  into  England.  The 
earliest  known  one  is  on  a  loose  cover  in 
the  library  of  Westminster  Abbey,  and  has 
the  arms  of  Edward  IV.  It  has  no  binder's 
stamp. 

Frederic  Egmondt  and  Nicholas  Le- 
compte,  among  the  first  stationer-book- 
sellers who  came  to  England  as  early  as 
1493,  had  panel  stamps  of  considerable 
interest.  Lecompte's  was  an  arabesque 
floral  pattern  of  foreign  design.  Egmondt's 
were  two  in  number;  a  Tudor  rose  in  the 
centre  of  a  panel  surrounded  by  vine  leaves, 
and  a  copy  of  the  printer's  device  of  Philippe 
Pigouchet,  of  Paris,  a  wild  man  and  woman 
standing  oil  either  side  of  a  tree,  and   sup- 

194 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

porting  a  shield  bearing  Egmondt's  mark 
and  initials.  The  first  named,  /.  e.  the 
Tudor  rose,  was  a  favourite  stamp  of  the 
time  and  used  by  Pynson  (1493  to  152^) 
but  Egmondt's  stamp  is  distinguished  by  an 
arabesque  floral  border  bearing  his  initials 
and  mark. 

Only  two  specimens  of  Egmondt's  panels 
are  known,  one  in  Caius  College,  the  other 
Corpus  College,  Cambridge.  Both  have 
on  the  reverse  a  panel  containing  three  rows 
of  arabesque  and  foliage  surrounded  by  a 
border  having  ribbons  in  the  upper  and 
lower  portions  inscribed  with  the  names  of 
the  four  Evangelists. 

In  England  the  development  of  the  panel 
stamp  was  mainly  heraldic.  Bindings  con- 
taining the  royal  arms  with  supporters  and 
different  applications  of  the  Tudor  rose  and 
other  Tudor  emblems  are  too  well  known 
to  need  reproduction. 

Some  ten  binders  appear  to  have  used 
some  form  of  these  stamps  from  the  num- 
ber of  the  different  initials  found  upon  them. 

19s 


BOOKBINDERS    AND     THEIR     CRAFT 

One  of  these  panels  contained  the  royal 
arms  supported  by  a  greyhound  and  dragon 
— supporters  discarded  in  1528 — the  other 
a  large  Tudor  rose  supported  by  angels. 
Round  the  rose  run  two  ribbons  bearing 
the  motto  "  Haec  rosa  virtutis  de  coelo 
missa  sereno  eternum  florens  regia  sceptra 
feret."  The  Durham  Library  has-  a  book 
with  the  two  stamps  contained  on  one 
panel,  and  there  are  many  different  varia- 
tions. The  most  important  binders  using  these 
Tudor  emblem  stamps  were  John  Reynes, 
Henry  Jacobi  and  Julian  Notary,  whose 
bindings  are  always  signed.  Reynes  had 
another  stamp  besides  the  above,  very  like 
a  contemporary  wood  engraving  in  the 
Book  of  Hours  printed  by  Thielman  Kerver 
representing  the  instruments  of  the  Passion 
arranged  heraldically  upon  a  shield  with 
supporters  and  the  inscription  below 
"  Redemptoris  mundi  arma." 

Although  pictorial  panels  were  not  so 
largely  used  in  England  as  abroad,  the  An- 
nunciation in  different  forms  was  not  infre- 

196 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 


PANEL    OF  ST.    NICHOLAS  AND  THE  CHILDREN 

quent,  while  St.  George  slaying  the  dragon 
and  St.  Michael  and  St.  George,  may  also 
be  found.  The  best  specimens  of  this  Eng- 
lish work  are  now  well  pictured  in  the  vol- 
ume that  appeared  in  1895  on  "English 
Bookbindings  in  the  British  Museum/'  by 
Mr.  W.  Y.  Fletcher.  The  illustration  given 
is  from  a  binding  by  Nicholas  Speryng,  a 
Cambridge  stationer,  who,  with  a  primary 
allusion  to  his  Christian  name  had  a  design 
of  St.  Nicholas  restoring  to  life  the  three 
pickled  children. 

197 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

Stamped  work  seems  to  have  followed 
the  apparently  inevitable  law  of  artistic  fit- 
ness followed    by    subsequent    degradation. 


PANEL    WITH    THE    INSTRUMENTS    OF    THE    PASSION 

Towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century 
the  blocks  became  poor  and  debased,  the 
medallion  heads  on  the  panels  used  by  God- 
frey, Nicolas    Singleton     and  others    being 

i98 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

very  typical  of  the  complete  disappearance 
of  all  that  was  vigorous  and  effective  in  the 
best  days  of  the  stamp. 

We  have  now  passed  in  review  the  differ- 
ent types  of  work  stamped  without  gold, 
but,  before  concluding  with  a  few  practical 
remarks  as  to  the  essentials  of  a  satisfactory 
stamp  we  must  briefly  mention  the  gilt 
stamped  bindings,  many  of  which  were,  in 
their  way,  entirely  satisfactory. 

Contemporaneous  with  Francis  I  and 
Grolier,  for  whose  bindings  he  probably  de- 
signed the  letters,  is  Geoffroy  Tory,  who 
produced  the  most  important  stamped  work 
in  gold  ever  done  by  any  stationer. 

Born  in  1485,  he  was  educated  in  Italy 
and  then  set  up  at  Paris  as  printer,  book- 
seller and  binder.  The  stationer-booksellers 
of  France  had  issued  many  stamped  bindings 
of  considerable  interest,  but  it  was,  no  doubt, 
the  influence  of  Italy  that  enabled  Geoffroy 
Tory  to  achieve  his  remarkable  results. 

We  have  no  time  to  do  more  than  de- 
scribe his  bindings,  but  the  woodcuts  which 

199 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

he  drew  for  the  books  that  he  printed  are 
well  worth  study.  Indeed,  the  books  that 
issued  from  his  Press  as  regards  printing, 
illustration  and  binding,  are  among  the 
most  interesting  of  a  period  in  which  the 
highest  artistic  qualities  went  to  the  mak- 
ing of  books  in  all  their  detail.  The  stamps 
that  he  designed  for  his  book  covers  are 
arabesque  work,  of  which  the  Italian  origin 
is  very  apparent.  Our  example  is  from  a 
Petrarch  in  the  British  Museum,  and  it  is 
a  most  graceful  instance  of  pure  Renaissance 
work. 

In  the  lower  part  of  the  panel  and  form- 
ing part  of  the  arabesques  is  to  be  seen  the 
sign  of  the  broken  pitcher,  or  "  pot  casse." 
This  sign  is  first  found  in  a  woodcut  at  the 
end  of  a  Latin  poem  published  in  1523  on 
the  death  of  his  little  daughter  Agnes.  In 
this  woodcut  the  vase,  pierced  by  a  wimble 
or  auger,  stands  chained  upon  a  closed  book. 
This  wimble,  called  "  toret"  in  French  is 
probably  a  punning  mark  on  his  name,  for 
it  was  always  in  the  form  of  a  T  and  was 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 


OPERE    DEL    PETRARCHA.        VINEGIA,    1 525 


also  used  by  engravers.  The  device  designed, 
no  doubt,  in  allusion  to  the  death  of  his 
child,  is  explained  by  him  in  his  book 
"  Champfleury,"  a  treatise  on  the  proportion 
of  ancient  letters,  in  which  the  woodcuts 
are  especially  fine. 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

It  is  worth  while  to  read  this  explanation 
in  the  original  quaint  and  charming  French, 
full  as  it  is  of  the  particular  flavour  of  the 
Renaissance.  We  see  the  religious  senti- 
ment modified  by  the  Greek  mind  as  that 
appeared  in  the  new  learning,  the  associa- 
tions of  another  world  mingled  with  a  kind 
of  regretful  consciousness  of  that  new  birth 
to  things  of  the  senses  which  the  classic  re- 
vival had  brought  about.  These  are  char- 
acteristics that  we  find  here  and  again  in 
many  of  the  Renaissance  writers,  and  that 
give  to  the  literature  of  that  period  its  pecu- 
liar and  subtle  attraction.  In  plain  English, 
his  explanation  of  the  sign  is  as  follows: 
The  broken  pitcher  is  our  body,  which  is  a 
vessel  of  clay  ;  the  wimble  is  fate,  which 
pierces  alike  both  strong  and  weak;  the 
book  with  three  chains  and  locks  signifies 
that  after  death  our  body  is  sealed  by  the 
three  fates  ;  the  flowers  in  the  pitcher  are 
the  virtue  we  possess  in  life.  Geoffroy 
Tory's  bindings  are  exceedingly  scarce,  but 
the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  possesses  three, 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

one  exceedingly  fine,  having  the  pitcher 
pierced  by  the  wimble  and  two  birds  at  the 
top  among  the  scroll  work. 

For  the  most  part,  commercial  binding 


LYONNESE    STAMPED    BINDING,    I55I 


in  the  sixteenth  century  was  a  mere  repro- 
duction of  the  styles  .  chosen  by  collectors 
for  work  done  to  their  order.  With  the 
adoption  of  details  made  for  execution  by 
hand,  but  then  united  with  mechanical  reg- 
ularity to  the  large  plaque,  the  decadence  of 
the  stamp  was  practically  assured. 


203 


BOOKBINDERS     AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

But  for  the  brief  period  during  the  last 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  commercial 
work  had  a  really  independent  artistic  ex- 
istence,  and    consequently,  as    far   as    gold 


i 

'     '          ': 

• 

■ 

LYONNESE    STAMPED    BINDING,     1 5  54 

stamped  bindings  are  concerned,  was  at  its 
best.  The  Lyons  work  is  the  only  work 
of  its  kind  of  which  one  can  say  that  it 
contains  a  distinct  feeling  of  what  should 
differentiate  stamped  from  hand  work. 
Even  here  there  is  much  that  is  unsuitable, 

204 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

but  it  is  possible  to  select  from  among  the 
quantity  of  the  little  Lyonnese  books  still  in 
existence  some  really  admirable  specimens 
of  block  work,  mainly  stamped  on  calf. 


LYONNESE    STAMPED    BINDING,     1575 


Some  of  the  Lyons  binders  used  very  fine 
stamps.  We  find  those  that  show  the  azured 
corner  and  centre  pieces  which  originated 
in  Venice  but  were  largely  used  in  France; 
while  others  reproduce  the  painted  inter- 
laced work  with  or  without  the  Venetian 

205 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

flower  tools  we  saw  in  the  papers  on  Ital- 
ian bindings.  One  can  see  how  they  copied 
the  handwork  patterns  and  yet  often  with 
such  difference,  as,   in  the    best    examples, 


LYONNESE    STAMPED   BINDING 


made    those    patterns    more  suitable    to    a 
stamp  or  block. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  how  commercial 
work  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  artistic 
binding  throughout  successive  periods,  repro- 
ducing the  best  designs,  and,  later  on,  when 


206 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

the  art  became  decadent,  also  the  worst. 
But  we  have  not  time  to  follow  it  further. 
The  little  Lyons  printed  volumes  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  mostly  duodecimo,  of 
which  the  examples  given  are  from  the 
library  of  the  late  Mr.  Charles  Elton,  are 
those  alone  on  which  this  commercial  work 
had  really  independent  artistic  manner.  They 
show  that  because  a  design  is  stamped  from 
a  block  it  need  not  be  the  less  admirable, 
after  its  kind,  than  work  that  is  hand- 
wrought. 

We  have  now  briefly  glanced  at  the  three 
main  classes  of  stamped  work  as  applied  to 
bindings  from  the  earliest  time — /.  e.,  the 
Durham  and  English  school,  generally  of 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries ;  the 
panel  stamp  formal,  pictorial  and  heraldic 
of  the  Netherlandish,  French  and  English 
schools  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  ;  and  the  Lyonnese  gilt  stamps  of 
the  sixteenth  century. 

And  it  may  be  said  at  once  that  the  first 
lesson  we  learn  from  their  consideration  is 

207 


BOOKBINDERS    AND     THEIR    CRAFT 

that  stamped  work  has  its  special  laws  as  re- 
gards fitness  and  beauty  of  which  the  chief 
is  that  it  should  not  attempt  to  reproduce 
the  effect  of  the  hand.  Designing  for 
block  work  is  a  thing  apart:  it  is  far  more 
akin  to  the  art  of  the  medalist  than  to  that 
of  the  mere  designer,  and  it  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  impression  received  from 
a  stamp  should  be  obtained  at  one  blow  and 
not  built  up  piece  by  piece  according  to  the 
mental  habit  when  grasping  mere  surface 
decoration. 

A  very  curious  binding  was  shown  at  the 
exhibition  at  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club 
in  1 891,  evidently  from  a  block,  colour  be- 
ing introduced  later.  It  has  a  bold  design 
of  caryatides  supporting  a  framework.  So 
far  as  I  am  aware,  it  is  unique  of  its  kind, 
and  is  here  reproduced  as  full  of  interest 
to  the  designer  of  stamps. 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  present  decora- 
tion of  publishers'  bindings  is  upon  wrong 
lines.  The  blocks  are  made  to  impress 
the    cloth     or  leather   in   the    strict    sense 

208 


EARLY    STAMPED    BINDINGS 

of  the  term — not  cut  in  intaglio,  so  as 
to  give  relief.  So  in  most  cloth  work, 
not  only  are  many  of  the  designs  made  up 


BINDING    SHOWN    AT    THE    BURLINGTON    FINE    ARTS    CLUB 

of  small  details,  such  as  could  be  equally 
well  carried  out  by  the  binder  with  his 
ordinary  tools,  but  they  are  blocked  flat, 
and  have  no  relief  whatever.  As  a  result 
they  only  differ  from  hand-worked  patterns 
by  having  a  mechanical  precision,  which,  in 
itself,  is  valueless. 

209 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

I  cannot  but  think  that  if  some  pattern- 
maker for  book  covers  were  to  glean  in- 
spiration from  a  careful  examination  of  the 
blocks  on  some  of  the  old  work  above 
spoken  of,  he  might  arrive  at  a  new  de- 
parture as  regards  publishers'  bindings.  On 
such  work  a  finely  cut  stamp,  impressed 
without  gold,  would  give  more  artistic  and 
satisfying  results  than  are  to  be  found  with 
the  present  gaudy  system  of  flat  blocking 
in  gold  and  colour. 


EARLY   ITALIAN    BINDINGS 


VII 


EARLY  ITALIAN  BINDINGS 


SUPPOSE  more  has  been 
written  about  the  Italian 
Renaissance  than  about  any 
other  period  of  history,  ex- 
cept, perhaps,  that  of  Athens 
under  Pericles.  But  each  time  one  is 
brought  face  to  face  with  it  one  is  filled 
anew  with  fresh  wonder  at  the  perfec- 
tion attained  by  all  the  arts  at  that  time 
—  a  perfection  as  spontaneous  and  sudden 
as  it  was  brief  in  duration. 

The  period  of  the  best  Italian  bindings 
begins  with  the  time  that  Aldus  set  up  his 
Press  at  Venice  in  1494  and  ends  with  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.    It  was  the 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

time  then  of  the  full  Florentine  Renaissance 
— of  Michael  Angelo,  Perugino  and  Leon- 
ardo da  Vinci  in  painting,  of  Benvenuto 
Cellini  and  his  exquisite  work  in  gold  and 
silver,  of  Ghirlandajo,  painter  and  jeweler 
at  Florence,  of  Lucca  della  Robbia  and  his 
modelled  terra-cotta,  and  all  the  majolica 
work  that  has  never  been  equaled.  All  the 
crafts  were,  in  fact,  fine  arts ;  it  was  their 
full  flowering  time,  never  to  be  repeated. 

In  going  to  any  good  museum  with  the 
mind  full  of  these  things,  one  sees  enough 
to  show  that  whether  looking  at  architec- 
ture or  painting,  or  at  sculpture  and  carv- 
ing, or  at  metal  and  goldsmith's  work,  or 
at  pottery  and  cabinet-making,  tapestry  and 
armor,  or  at  the  printing  and  binding  of 
books,  it  is  all  one — the  full  flower  and 
fruit  are  there,  as  the  world's  history  goes, 
of  one  hundred  years  at  most. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  at  that 
time  binding,  too,  was  a  living  art  and  not  a 
mere  handicraft. 

The   impetus   to  books   and    their   orna- 


214 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

ments  with  which  we  are  now  concerned 
came  with  the  fall  of  Constantinople  in 
1453  and  ^e  influx  of  Greek  scholars  into 
Italy  that  began  the  classic  revival.  The 
delight  in  beauty  and  the  joy  of  living 
which  is  one  of  the  characteristic  notes  of 
Hellenism,  was  as  a  trumpet-call  to  throw 
off  the  fetters  to  thought  and  feeling  that 
had  existed  up  to  that  time.  For  hitherto 
learning  and  civilization  had  centred  in  the 
life  of  the  church.  The  seal  of  its  approval 
or  condemnation  had  been  required  in  every 
department  of  life,  until  the  revival  of  learn- 
ing brought  about  a  new  standard. 

Henceforth  all  was  to  be  changed.  The 
surroundings  of  life  were  to  be  adorned 
from  the  greatest  to  the  smallest,  and  cer- 
tainly the  books  which  had  thrown  open  a 
new  world  to  an  eager  age  were  not  least 
in  the  scale  of  importance. 

The  origin  of  the  art  of  impressing 
leather  with  gold  by  means  of  hot  tools 
worked  upon  gold  leaf  has  not  yet  been 
traced.       It  is  said  to  have  been  employed 

215 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

in  Syria  as  early  as  the  thirteenth  century. 
It  was  certainly  brought  from  the  East  and 
may  have  been  suggested  by  the  ornament 
of  the  manuscripts  carried  into  Italy  after  the 
fall  of  Constantinople  in  1453.  The  actual 
technique  may  have  been  introduced  at 
Venice  by  the  Greek  and  Arab  workmen 
when  attracted  there  through  commercial 
relations  with  the  Levant  and  some  of  whom 
we  know  were  employed  by  Aldus  at  his 
Press. 

The  earliest  editions  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  classics  were  printed  by  Aldus  in  the 
italic  type  that  he  invented  or  rather  that 
he  is  supposed  to  have  taken  from  the  hand- 
writing of  Petrarch  and  that  is  always  as- 
sociated with  his  name.  It  is  on  these 
volumes,  the  size  of  which  (octavo)  he 
originated  as  well  as  the  type,  that  gold 
tooling  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term  was 
first  employed  in  Italy. 

Many  Eastern  inventions  were  acquired  by 
the  Venetians  in  their  traffic  with  the  Le- 
vant, and  this  may  have  been  one  of  them, 

216 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

as  was  certainly  the  recessed  and  lacquered 
work  employed  on  bindings  during  a  short 
period. 

In  this  the  boards  were  made  of,  or 
coated  with,  some  form  of  paper  composi- 
tion, that  allowed  the  centres  and  corners 
to  be  stamped  out  in  sunk  panels  or  shaped 
compartments.  The  whole  was  then  gen- 
erally covered  with  a  thinly-pared  leather 
and  this  was  next  coated  with  a  coloured 
lacquer  and  finally  painted  with  arabesques 
in  gold.  Both  in  the  British  and  South 
Kensington  Museums  in  London  you  can 
see  examples  of  this  work,  which  is  purely 
Italian  and  chiefly  interesting  from  showing 
the  influence  of  the  East.  They  are  often 
found  with  the  lion  of  St.  Mark  painted  on 
the  centre  panel,  and  when  suc'h  is  the  case 
seem  to  have  been  employed  as  the  official 
binding  of  the  Statutes  and  Commissions  of 
the  Venetian  Senate.  A  very  fine  example 
is  given  from  a  Harleian  manuscript  in  the 
British  Museum,  though  unfortunately  the 
brilliancy  of  the  red  leather,  coloured  lacquer 

217 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

and  gold  is  lost  in  reproduction.  The  sec- 
ond example  is  also  from  the  British  Mu- 
seum and   can  be  seen  in    the   show    case 


HARLEIAN    MANUSCRIPT    IN    THE    BRITISH     MUSEUM 


there.  The  South  Kensington  Museum 
possesses  a  collection  of  stamps  and  tools 
used  by  Persian  workmen  in  the  production 


218 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

of  such  bindings  in  more  recent  times  and 
these  show  that  each  of  the  sunk  panels  was 
formed  by  the  impression  of  a  single  die. 


PICCOLOMINI        DELLA   INSTITUTIONE  MORALE.     VENETIA,    I560 

But  Eastern  influence  may  also  be  traced 
upon  the  Italian  bindings  during  the  last 
half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  to  which  we 

219 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

are  about  to   direct  attention  in   this  paper 

and  which  are  sometimes  called  Saracenic. 

The  designs  on  these  bindings  are  largely 

made  up  of  the  cable  work  or  rope  pattern, 


COLLECTION    OF    PERSIAN    TOOLS    IN    SOUTH     KENSINGTON     MUSEUM 


as  it  is  named,  the  term  coming  no  doubt 
from  the  interlacings  or  reticulations  being 
put  together  in  imitation  of  the  twist  of  a 
rope. 

The  knots  are  often  made  up  into  bor- 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 


ARATI    PHAENOMENA 


ders  between  lines,  the  centre  panel  having 
them  ingeniously  contained  in  a  circle. 

In    the    earliest    work   of  this   type   the 
"  tooling'*  is  "blind/'  that  is  to  say,  without 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

gold,  and  the  spaces  between  the  knots  are 
filled  with  small  roundels. 

The  first  illustration  is  of  this  kind  and 
represents  a  very  well  preserved  book  in 
the  British  Museum — Arati  Phaenomena,  a 
manuscript  of  the  late  fifteenth  century. 
The  little  roundels  just  mentioned  in  these 
cable  work  designs  were  made  of  stamped 
thin  metal  discs  sometimes  of  gold  but  more 
frequently  of  copper.  The  British  Museum 
possesses  several  books  with  such  traces, 
including  the  one  here  shown.  Even  when 
entirely  blind-tooled,  the  knots  and  inter- 
lacements give  great  richness  of  effect,  and 
the  possibilities  of  combination  they  con- 
tain enable  them  to  be  applied  to  books  of 
all  sizes  with  equally  satisfactory  results. 

The  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club  at  their 
Exhibition  in  1891,  showed  a  considerable 
number  of  books  with  this  type  of  binding, 
many  of  which  are  reproduced  in  their  fine 
illustrated  catalogue.  A  special  feature  of 
these  bindings,  apart  from  the  design,  is 
that  in    addition  to    the  two  clasps  on  the 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

fore  edge,  they  had  two  others  at  top  and 
bottom,  traces  of  which  you  can  see  in  the 
present  illustration.  The  boards  were  of 
wood  and  frequently  grooved  down  the 
edge,  a  peculiarity  copied  no  doubt  from  the 
Greek  manuscripts  that  came  over  after  the 
fall  of  Constantinople.  This  habit  of  groov- 
ing the  edges  of  the  covers  of  Greek  books 
continued  well  into  the  sixteenth  century. 
It  is  to  be  found  on  many  Aldine  bind- 
ings and  also  on  some  made  for  Henri  II 
of  France. 

These  ungilt  cable  work  designs  have,  to 
my  mind,  a  great  charm.  On  the  one 
hand  their  absolute  simplicity  of  motive 
and  their  skilful  application  of  very  few  de- 
tails are,  in  themselves,  attractive  ;  while  on 
the  other  we  see  them  mostly  disposed  in 
the  two  main  schemes  of  decoration  that 
always  seem  to  me  to  be  most  appropriate 
to  book-cover  decorations,  namely,  the  bor- 
der and  the  panel. 

There  is  one  not  infrequent  treatment  of 
the  panel  in  these  books,  a  treatment  that  is, 

223 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

perhaps,  not  confined  to  them,  but  is,  at  all 
events,  especially  distinctive  of  Italian  bind- 
ings. It  is  the  way  in  which  the  border 
of  the  panel,  instead  of  being  merely  carried 
round,  is  repeated  at  the  top  and  bottom,  so 
that  the  superior  length  of  the  book  in  re- 
lation to  its  breadth,  is  duly  emphasized, 
with  a  consequent  considerable  distinction 
in  the  design  that  it  would  not  otherwise 
possess. 

The  next  step  in  this  class  of  reticulated 
patterns  was  the  addition  of  gold,  which 
then  for  the  first  time  was  employed  tech- 
nically in  the  manner  of  the  present  day. 
When  used  sparingly,  as  it  was  at  first,  it 
proved  a  very  happy  innovation.  It  gave 
great  value,  in  an  artistic  sense,  to  the  rest 
of  the  work,  and  blind  and  gold  tooling 
were  thus  associated  on  some  of  the  most 
attractive  books  of  the  first  half  of  the  six- 
teenth century. 

The  second  illustration  gives  a  simple  ex- 
ample of  this  combination,  and  is  in  every 
way  a  type  of  binding  frequently  met  with 

224 


EARLY     ITALIAN     BINDINGS 


HARLEIAN  MANUSCRIPT  IN  THE  BRITISH   MUSEUM 

at  this  date.      It  is   on  a  manuscript  in  the 
British  Museum  written  in  151  5. 

Of  the   value    of  blind,  in    combination 
with  gold,  tooling,  one  can  never  be  too  ob- 

225 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

servant.  We  all  know  the  decorative  effect 
of  a  shadow.  Sometimes  by  fire-light  in  a 
room,  a  very  commonplace  interior  will 
have  not  only  a  sense  of  mystery  but  an 
actual  contrast  of  form  and  colour,  caused  by 
the  different  parts  of  the  different  objects  in 
it  being  delicately  contrasted.  Some  measure 
of  that  effect  is  obtained  by  the  darkened 
lines  and  impressions  of  blind-worked  tools, 
which  sometimes  merely  shadow  the  actual 
border,  as  in  the  present  example,  and  at 
others  are  interwoven  with  the  design. 

A  very  rich  example  of  the  cable  pattern 
carried  out  entirely  in  gold  may  be  seen  on 
a  manuscript  of  Onosander  belonging  to  the 
early  sixteenth  century,  which  was  owned 
by  Mr.  William  Morris  and  which  I  am  per- 
mitted to  reproduce  here.  Had  the  letter- 
ing been  absent,  or  more  in  proportion  to 
the  design,  it  would  be  an  entirely  happy 
instance  of  the  type  of  pattern  known  as 
"  the  border  within  the  border." 

All  these  bindings  belong  to  the  time 
when  printing  was   about  to  make,  or  had 

^^6 


EARLY    ITALIAN     BINDINGS 

just  made,  its  appearance   in  Italy,  and   be- 
fore  passing   to    the  next  type  of  bindings, 


MANUSCRIPT    OF    ONOSANDER.         CABLE      PATTERN,      IN      GOLD  : 
OWNED    BY    MR.    WILLIAM    MORRIS 


found  on  some  of  the  earliest  printed  books, 
it    may  be  well  to  emphasize  for    a    mo- 


227 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

ment  the  striking  contrast  presented  be- 
tween the  book  cover  decoration  we  are 
now  considering  and  that  of  the  contem- 
porary stamped  work  of  England  and  other 
countries,  to  which  I  have  devoted  another 
paper.  In  that  work  we  have  the  decora- 
tive block-stamp,  of  great  beauty,  certainly, 
and  frequently  of  symbolic  interest,  but 
giving  the  decorative  effect  in  solid  mass, 
and,  as  it  were,  at  one  blow. 

The  influence  of  eastern  art  in  Italy 
made  for  a  different  effect.  In  those  early 
Italian  bindings  the  total  impression  is  got 
by  a  few  simple  elements  skilfully  arranged 
in  combination  and  repetition.  From 
this  period  dates  the  decoration  of  bindings 
by  means  of  small  tools,  with  lines  and  curves, 
such  ornamental  details  being  worked  by 
hand  and  kept  subservient  to  the  effect 
of  the  whole,  in  a  way  never  since  sur- 
passed. 

We  will  pass  now  to  the  type  of  orna- 
ment found  on  Aldine  books,  and  those  of 
other   printers   who,  like   Giunta,  of   Flor- 

228 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 


CiESAR.        COMMENTARIA,    GIUNTA, 


5'4 


ence,  imitated    the     characteristics    of  the 
Aldine  Press. 

The  British  Museum  possesses  a  Caesar 
printed  by  Giunta  in  1514  which  is  a  most 
perfect  specimen  of  this  class.     The  border 

229 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

is  made  up  of  an  exceedingly  graceful 
Aldine  tool,  which  may  be  seen  used  in 
different  forms  for  a  long  time  to  come ; 
and  the  panel,  which  encloses  some  knotted 


' 

' 

iMsSJSfiJKik  i«< 

1 

AGYy/: 

1    ll 

J: 

T_   Vi            9*-  *  -•».        i/^miaf 

- 

EURIPIDES.     VENETIIS   ALDUS,    I503 


work,  is  accentuated  at  the  top  and  bottom 
in  the  manner  just  referred  to  as  essentially 
characteristic  of  Italian  bindings. 

An  instance  of  more  lavish  ornament,  but 
applied  with  equal  simplicity  and  distinction, 
is  on  a  Euripides  printed  by  Aldus  in  1503 


230 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

belonging  to  the  late  Mr.  Charles  Elton, 
from  whose  collection  all  the  illustrations 
of  this  type  of  binding  are  drawn.  We  see 
the  leaves  and  the  other    solid    ornaments 


PONTANUS.       VENETITS    ALDUS,     1  509 

that  were  used  by  Aldus  in  his  printed 
page  and  which  play  an  important  part  in 
the  decoration  of  bindings  for  a  century 
and  more.  It  is  an  instance  of  the  earliest 
style  to  be  found  on  Aldine  books  which  was 
richer  and  more  elaborate  than  the  middle 

231 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

style  in  which  the  pattern  is  almost  severely 
restrained,  having  for  the  most  part  merely 
a  panel  of  simple  gold  and  blind  lines  with 
solid  ornaments  at  the  angles. 


LIVII  HISTORIA.      VENETHS  ALDUS,    I  $20 


Another  illustration  from  a  Pontanus 
printed  by  Aldus  in  1 509,  will  be  sufficient  to 
emphasize  this  earlier  Aldine  style.  Here 
we  have  a  very  rich  panel,  full  of  luxuriant 
scroll  work,  mingled  with  the  same  solid 


EARLY     ITALIAN     BINDINGS 

tools  as  in  the  last,  and  its  effect  is  greatly 
enhanced  by  the  border  of  plain  leather. 

Another  example  is  from  a  Livy  printed 
in  i  520,  likewise  by  Aldus.      Within  a  gold 


BOCCACCIO.      AMOROSA    VISIONE        VINEGIA, 


531 


border  on  the  upper  cover  is  the  title  T.  L. 
Decas  IIII.,  on  the  lower,  the  figure  of 
Fortune  holding  out  a  sail  with  the  initials 
I.  S.  in  gold.  Such  a  figure  is  often  found 
on     early    Venetian     bindings.       The    last 


*33 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

illustration  is  on  a  Boccaccio  of  later  date. 
There  is  a  freshness  and  lack  of  effort  about 
this  and  other  samples  of  the  same  type, 
that  strike  one  as  perhaps  the  happiest 
characteristic  of  that  which  is  altogether 
entirely  admirable. 

We  have  seen  enough,  perhaps,  now  to 
make  us  to  form  an  opinion  as  to  the  lessons 
to  be  drawn  from  the  examples  of  early  Ital- 
ian binding.  They  are,  I  think,  will  be 
agreed,  mainly  these  : — 

Firstly,  a  constant  sense  of  the  shape  and 
proportions  of  the  thing  to  be  decorated, 
seen  in  the  insistence  on  the  border  and 
the  panel  as  schemes  of  design. 

Secondly,  an  equally  fine  sense  of  the  value 
given  to  ornament,  by  the  unornamented 
parts  or  untouched  spaces  of  leather. 

Thirdly,  restraint  in  the  matter  of  decora- 
tive detail  so  that  it  is  always  kept  in  due 
subordination  to  the  effect  of  the  whole. 

These  early  craftsmen  knew  full  well  that 
in  matters  of  art,  richness  of  effect  is  got 
not  by  the  multiplication  of  rich  detail  but 

234 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

by  the  effective  contrast  of  such  detail  with 
a  severe  simplicity. 

ii 
We  have  no  information  as  to  the  ar- 
rangements made  by  Aldus  for  the  bind- 
ing of  the  books  he  printed.  Possibly  he 
had  a  binder's  shop  in  connection  with  his 
Press.  Certain  it  is  that  not  only  his  type 
but  also  his  binding  were  imitated  by  Phil- 
ippo  da  Giunta,  the  Florentine  printer.  So 
that  in  speaking  of  Aldine  styles  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  they  are  to  be  found  not 
exclusively  on  the  books  printed  by  Aldus, 
though  they  of  course  originated  there.  All 
the  finest  early  Italian  bindings  may,  indeed, 
be  illustrated  from  the  Aldine  books,  among 
which  there  are  three  different  styles.  In  the 
preceding  paper  we  have  described  the 
earliest,  which  belongs  to  the  close  of  the  fif- 
teenth and  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, and  which  was  richer  than  the  second  or 
middle  style,  possibly  on  account  of  the 
freshness  of  the  discovery  of  the  effect  pro- 
ass 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 


//  „;•>.- 


PlI Nl   SECVNDf 
NATVAAtIS  HJ 


'  /' 

/ 

SECVNDA   PAR 


'.- 


PLINH    SECUNDI    HISTORIA  NATURALIS.       VENETIIS,   ALDUS,    1 535 


duced  by  gold  tooling.  About  1520  we 
meet  with  the  second  style,  in  which,  instead 
of  enriched  borders,  we  get  the   panels   al- 


236 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 


TROGI    POMPEII    EXTERNA   HISTORIC  IN    COMPENDIUM  AB 
JUSTINO    REDACTS.    VENETIIS,    1522 


ready  mentioned  of  simple  gold  and  blind 
lines  with  solid  ornaments  at  the  angles;  the 
fore-edge  of  the  boards  has  strings  or  clasps, 


*37 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 


GRATIUS.        HOC    VOLUMINE    CONTINENTUR    POETAE    TRES,    ETC.  ^ 

VENETIIS,     I534 


and  if  a  folio  there  is  an  additional  clasp  at 
top  and  bottom.  We  are  able  to  illustrate  this 
style  from  the  books  bound  for  Grolier  in 

238 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 


V  «.  -  •/-*-- Jr- 


w* 

fe 


tlJ^c^  mi;i 


^^Trv-^ 


at 

1 

; 

Jk 

Of 

gTTV 

1 

is 

7si 

B.    THEODORETI  IN  S.    PAULI     EPISTOLAS    COMMENTARIUS. 
FLORENTI^,    1552 

the  British  Museum.  On  the  Aldine  Eurip- 
ides we  saw  the  beginning  of  the  framework, 
the  geometrical  character  of  which  is  grad- 

*39 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

ually    developed  in   this   middle  style,  the 
flowered  tools   being    always    solid    and  of 
the  same  type  as  those  we  saw  before. 
The  third  style  consists  of  the  more  elab- 


ERIZZO.       DISCORSO    SOPRA    LE    MEDAGLIE    ANTICHE 
VENETIIS,     1559 

orate  interlaced  patterns  with  which  the 
name  of  Grolier  is  particularly  associated. 
Here  we  get  the  geometrical  basis  in  its 
most  rigid  form,  sometimes  diversified  with 
the  addition  of  the  Aldine  ornaments  or 
with  Arabesque  work,  sometimes  complet- 

240 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

ing  the  design  in   itself.      In  very  rare  in- 
stances we  get  a  design  made  up  entirely  of 


^NEiE.       VICI  IN  VETERA  IMPERATORUM    ROMANORUM     NUMISMATA 
COMMENTARII.        VENETIIS,    I560 

most  graceful  scroll  work  like  that  of  the 
11  Erizzo.  Discorso  sopra le  medaglie  antiche," 
pictured  in  M.   Bouchot's  "  Reliures   d'art 

241 


\ 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

a  la  bibliotheque  nationale,"  and  of  a  bind- 
ing in  the  British  Museum  illustrated  next. 
These  are  generally  considered  to  belong 
to  the  work  executed  for  Grolier  in 
France.  We  get  ajso  a  type  specially  Italian 
in  character,  full  of  scroll  work  with  the 
Venetian  flower  tools  we  already  know  so 
well.  Sometimes  the  interlacings  of  the 
framework  are  painted  in  different  colours 
by  means  of  a  lacquer,  giving  the  effect  of  in- 
lay, though  the  actual  inlaying  or  onlaying 
of  different  leathers  only  began  much  later. 

As  we  have  drawn  our  illustrations  from 
the  bindings  of  the  Aldine  Press,  and  espe- 
cially from  books  in  the  famous  library  of 
the  great  collector  Jean  Grolier,  a  few 
words  as  to  his  life  and  relations  with  Al- 
dus may  not  be  amiss  in  this  connection. 

His  life  belongs  to  the  history  of  France, 
but  his  bindings  chiefly  to  Italy  and  the  Al- 
dine Press.  The  later  work  done  for  him 
was,  no  doubt,  executed  in  France,  and  so  his 
bindings  might,  in  that  sense,  be  treated  of 
amongst  French  bindings.     It  seems,  how- 

242 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

ever,  more  proper  to  discuss  them  mainly  as 
Italian;  firstly,  because  their  inception, 
as  a  whole,  was  entirely  Italian  and  the  exe- 
cution of  a  large  number  undoubtedly 
by  Italian  workmen  ;  and  secondly,  because 
it  is  possible  that  those  bound  after  his 
return  to  France,  and  which  show  a 
certain  refinement  upon  the  earlier  manner, 
in  the  use  of  lighter  tools,  may  have  been 
done,  also,  by  Italian  workmen,  retained  by 
him  in  his  house,  to  carry  out  instructions 
according  to  his  personal  taste. 

Grolier  is  so  interesting  a  figure  among  the 
princely  scholars  of  an  age  when  scholar- 
ship was  still  an  unworn  grace,  that  it  is  dif- 
ficult not  to  linger  over  his  career  and  the 
encouragement  he  gave  to  all  the  artists  and 
men  of  letters  of  his  time.  We  cannot,  how- 
ever, do  more  now  than  show  briefly  how 
he  came  to  be  so  intimately  connected  with 
the  Italian  Renaissance. 

Born  in  Lyons  in  1479,  of  a  family  that 
originally  came  from  Verona,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  thirteenth  century,  he  replaced 

243 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

his  father,  in  1510,  as  Treasurer  of  the 
Duchy  of  Milan,  a  province  conquered  by 
Louis  XII,  and  it  was,  probably,  about  that 
time  that  he  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Aldus.  Milan  subsequently  revolted  but  was 
re-united  to  France  by  Fran<pois  I  on  his 
accession,  and  in  1534,  Grolier  was  sent  by 
Francpois  I  as  Ambassador  to  Clement  VII. 
He  could  not  have  remained  either  at  the 
Court  of  Rome  or  as  Treasurer  of  Milan 
later  than  1530,  as  about  that  time  the 
French  troops  left  Italy  and  amicable  re- 
lations ceased  between  France  and  the  Pope. 
His  relations  with  Italy  thus  lasted  for  a 
period  of  twenty  years.  In  1537  he  had 
returned  to  Paris  and  was  employed  in  the 
Treasury  there.  And  in  1  547  he  was  made 
Treasurer  General  of  France,  a  position  he 
held  until  his  death  in  1565. 

Towards  the  end  of  his  life  he  fell  under 
serious  accusations  relative  to  the  discharge 
of  his  public  duties,  but  in  1 56 1  a  court, 
presided  over  by  Christophe  de  Thou, 
father  of  the  great  collector  of  that  name, 

244 


EARLY    ITALIAN     BINDINGS 

and  a  friend  of  Grolier,  annulled  the  legal 
process  against  him.  He  appears  neverthe- 
less always  to  have  had  the  confidence  of 
the  king  and  to  have  kept  his  various  posi- 
tions in  the  royal  service. 

Such  is  a  brief  account  of  the  outward 
events  of  his  life.  As  Treasurer  of  France, 
he  had  among  the  many  duties  that  fell  to 
that  office  the  care  of  the  palaces,  chateaux 
and  domains  belonging  to  the  crown.  Thus 
he  helped  to  establish  the  College  de  France 
under  Francois  I  and  superintended  many 
architectural  works  like  that  of  the  Palace 
of  Chantilly.  He  invented  a  new  coinage 
under  Henri  II,  helped  thereto,  no  doubt, 
by  his  own  knowledge  of  antique  medals. 
Of  these  he  had  made  an  extensive  collec- 
tion on  his  travels,  a  collection  subse- 
quently bought  by  Charles  IX  and  placed 
at  Fontainebleau,  whence  it  seems  to  have 
been  pillaged  during  the  wars  of  the  Holy 
League  in  1576.  Grolier's  house,  the  Hotel 
de  Lyon,  near  the  Bucy  Gate,  in  Paris,  con- 
tained his  library,  composed  of  3,000  vol- 

245 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

umes  of  classical  and  Italian  authors,  no 
doubt  acquired  mostly  in  Italy.  Of  these 
about  350  have  been  traced.  After  his  death 
they  were  divided  among  his  inheritors  and 
subsequently  found  their  way  into  the  chief 
private  collections  of  France. 

In  the  discharge  of  his  duties  as  Treas- 
urer of  the  French  army  in  Italy,  Grolier 
sometimes  lived  at  Naples,  but  mostly  in 
Milan,  whence  he  made  frequent  visits  to 
Venice.  Aldus  died  in  15  15,  leaving  four 
children,  but  all  too  young  to  direct  the 
printing  establishment  he  had  founded.  For- 
tunately its  management  was  undertaken  by 
his  father-in-law,  Andrea  Torresano  d'Asola 
and  his  two  sons.  At  that  time  Grolier's  re- 
lations with  the  house  were  most  intimate, 
and  in  a  letter  to  Fran9esco  d'Asola,  in 
1 5 19,  concerning  a  treatise  by  his  friend 
Bude,  the  foremost  Greek  scholar  of  the 
time,  upon  ancient  measures  and  moneys, 
"  De  Asse,"  which  he  was  having  printed, 
he  writes  thus:  "This  man's  death  has 
caused  me  a  very  bitter  sorrow,  as  much  be- 

246 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

cause  learning  has  lost  in  him  a  very  able 
restorer  as  that  I  have  been  deprived  of  a 
most  affectionate  friend;  "  and  in  the  same 
letter  he  makes  remarks  about  the  type, 
paper  and  margin  that  he  wanted  for  the 
book  mentioned,  that  show  of  how  service- 
able a  kind  was  his  patronage  of  the  press. 
The  catalogues  of  his  library  incidentally 
show  the  encouragement  he  gave  to  print- 
ing, for  more  than  one-third  of  the  books 
named  in  it  are  the  production  of  the  Al- 
dine  Press.  Indeed,  the  indebtedness  of  Al- 
dus and  his  family  to  their  patron  is  fully 
acknowledged  in  an  edition  of  Terence,  pub- 
lished at  Venice  in  1 5 1 7,  which  contains  a 
Latin  letter  of  dedication  to  Grolier,  signed 
by  the  same  Fran9esco  d'Asola,  brother-in- 
law  of  the  elder  Aldus.  There  are  other 
dedications  to  him  of  a  somewhat  similar 
kind,  and  whenever  they  published  a  book, 
several  copies  were  set  aside  for  him  printed 
either  on  vellum  or  on  special  paper. 

Virgil  appears  to  have  been  his  favourite 
author ;  he  owned  at  one  time  ten  copies  of 

247 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

his  works,  including  a  very  beautiful  manu- 
script and  the  earliest  printed  edition  of 
i486.  Of  the  Aldine  Virgil,  printed  in 
eighths,  in  1 527,  he  had  five  copies,  three  of 
which  he  afterwards  presented  to  friends  as 
his  habit  was.  To  Marc  Laurin,  Maioli, 
the  president  de  Thou,  he  made  presents  of 
books,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  inscriptions 
in  them.  GeofFroy  Tory,  the  French 
printer,  who  designed  some  of  the  letters 
for  his  bindings,  Pithou  and  Claude  du  Puy 
had  similar  gifts,  and  the  custom  of  having 
several  copies  of  the  same  book  may  possi- 
bly be  thus  explained.  On  nearly  all  Gro- 
lier's  books  the  pattern  is  so  arranged  as  to 
leave  in  the  centre  an  open  shield  or  lo- 
zenge. On  the  upper  cover,  within  the 
lozenge  occurs  the  title,  on  the  lower  there 
is  one  of  various  legends.  Sometimes  it  is 
"  Portio  mea  domine  sit  in  terra  viventium  " 
adapted  from  the  fifth  verse  of  the  142nd 
Psalm,  on  others,  "  Tanquam  ventus  est  vita 
mea  "  from  the  seventh  verse  of  the  seventh 
chapter  of  Job,  "  Custodit  dominus  omnes 

248 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

diligentes  se,  et  omnes  impios  disperdet," 
the  twentieth  verse  of  the  145th  Psalm,  and 
"Quisque  suos  patimur  manes  "  from  the 
743rd  line  of  the  sixth  book  of  the  iEneid. 

Another  motto, "  JEque  difficulter,"  is  also 
occasionally  found  and  may  be  translated 
"  the  golden  mean  is  hard."  This  occurs 
only  on  his  earlier  bindings,  and  is  accom- 
panied by  the  device  of  a  hand  coming  out 
of  a  cloud  and  striving  to  pull  an  iron  bar 
from  the  ground,  possibly  referring  to  some 
special  event  of  his  life.  Sometimes  his  arms 
—  az.  three  besants  or  in  point,  with  three 
stars  arg.  in  chief — are  stamped  on  the 
covers  either  singly  or  emblazoned  with 
those  of  his  wife  Anne  Britponnet. 

The  inscription  on  his  bindings,  IO. 
GROLIERII  ET  AMICORUM,  show- 
ing that  his  books  were  intended  for  the 
use  of  his  scholar  friends  as  well  as  himself, 
has  been  a  feature  in  his  Library  that  has 
always  interested  modern  book-lovers.  A 
similar  motto  is,  however,  to  be  found  on  the 
books  of  two  other  contemporary  collectors, 

249 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

Maioli  and  Laurin,  of  whom  I  shall  pre- 
sently speak.  This  shows,  perhaps,  that 
Grolier's  generous  notion  of  a  Library  was 
not  uncommon  in  those  days ;  or,  it  is  possi- 
ble, of  course,  that  they  may  have  acted 
merely  in  direct  imitation  of  his  habit. 

Grolier  is  a  most  striking  example  of  the 
fact  that  it  is  possible  for  book-collect- 
ing to  assure  a  man's  title  to  fame,  more 
than  any  other  occupation  of  his  life.  For 
though  he  filled  posts  of  the  very  highest 
importance  as  statesman  and  financier, 
though  as  scholar  and  antiquarian  he  lived 
through  the  reigns  of  seven  kings  of  France, 
from  Louis  XI  to  Charles  IX,  his  name 
would  have  been  forgotten,  but  for  the  books 
which  have  come  down  to  the  present  day 
as  witnesses  of  his  taste  in  all  the  departments 
of  letters. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  bindings  of 
Grolier  are  those  of  Maioli.  Tommaso  Maioli 
was  an  Italian  book-lover,  contemporary 
with  Grolier,  of  whom  nothing  is  known 
except  that  he  was  still  living  in    1555   and 

250 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

that  he  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  Grolier. 
In  the  Lyons  Public  Library  are  two  books 
stamped  with  the  name  and  motto  of  Maioli, 
in  which  Grolier  has  written  his  name  and 
motto.  The  books  that  remain  to  us  from 
his  collection  are  few  in  number,  compared 
with  those  that  we  have  of  Grolier,  but  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationale  has  nine  fine  speci- 
mens and  there  they  may  best  be  studied. 

The  designs  on  the  bindings  of  both  col- 
lectors are  very  similar  in  character,  but 
those  done  for  Maioli  are  distinctly  more 
florid.  Those  in  the  French  collection  are 
distinguished  for  their  flowing  scroll-work, 
the  curves  of  which  interlace  freely  with 
the  framework  ;  the  whole  character  of  the 
ornament  is  less  architectural  and  more  free. 

I  am  afraid,  however,  that  the  appropri- 
ateness of  these  distinctions  is  difficult  to  see 
on  the  two  examples  of  Maioli  books  here 
given,  for  they  are  hardly  typical  of  the 
free  scroll-work  just  described  as  distinguish- 
ing his  bindings.  They  are  both  in  the 
British  Museum.       The  first  is  on  a  copy  of 

251 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 


C.    JULII    CjESARIS    COMMENTARII.        ROME,    I469 


Caesar's  Commentaries;  the  second  on  that 
unsurpassed  example  of  early  Italian  print- 
ing, the  Hypnerotomachia  of  Francis  Co- 
lumna,  printed  in  1499.  Ornamented 
throughout  with  the  most  beautiful  wood- 
cuts, that  book  will  always  remain  distinct- 
ive of  the  Renaissance  and  the  most  superb 
example  of  the  Venetian  Press.  On  both 
these  bindings  one  can  see  certain  other 
differences  that  distinguish  them  from  Gro- 


25a 


EARLY    ITALIAN     BINDINGS 


HYPNEROTOMACHIA    POLIPHILI.        VENETIIS,     1 499 

lier's.  First,  the  frequent  enrichment  of 
the  field  by  dots — an  extremely  effective  in- 
novation and  very  rarely  found  on  Grolier's 
books.  Second,  the  flowered  tools  which 
are  mingled  with  the  scroll-work,  instead  of 
being  solid,  are  now  almost  entirely  in  out- 
line, or  else  azured.  It  is  only  on  one  or 
two  of  Grolier's  books  that  the  solid  tools 
are  not  found,  while  they  are  the  exception 
on  those  of  Maioli.      One  sees  that  Maioli 


253 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

followed  the  tradition  of  his  time  in  having 
a  possessive  motto  stamped  on  his  books, 
which  were  evidently,  like  those  of  Grolier, 
accessible  to  his  friends.  On  the  upper 
cover  is  generally  to  be  found  the  inscrip- 
tion, THO.  [or  THOIVLE]  MAIOLI  ET 
AMICORUM  ;  and  on  the  lower  cover  : 
INGRATIS  SERVIRE  NEPHAS  (It  is 
useless  to  help  the  ungrateful)  ;  or  the 
less  obvious  latin  legend:  INIMICI  MEI 
MEA  MICHI  NON  ME  MICHI,  of 
which  no  satisfactory  explanation  has  ever 
been  found,  but  of  which  a  suggested  trans- 
lation runs  :  Mine  enemies  are  able  to  take 
mine  from  me,  not  me  from  myself  (Pos- 
sint  inimici  mei  mea  eripere,  non  me  mihi). 

There  is  also  a  cypher  found  on  some 
Maioli  books,  that  has  likewise  never  been 
satisfactorily  interpreted  AEHILMOPST, 
out  of  which  his  name  can  be  formed,  but 
on  so  doing  leaves  other  letters  still  un- 
accounted for. 

One  peculiarity  to  be  found  on  some 
books  bound  for  him,  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  not 

254 


EARLY     ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

to  be  seen  elsewhere.  This  consists  in  some 
form  of  gold  rubbed  into  the  grain  of  the 
leather,  leaving  an  effect  of  bloom  or  fine 
dust  that  is  very  pleasing.  The  Bibliotheque 
Nationale  has  a  very  fine  binding  of  this 
nature,  and  there  is  a  rather  poor  one  in 
the  British  Museum,  but  not  on  view. 

Though  most  Maioli  books  are  richly 
ornamented,  there  are  some  simple  ones 
with  a  plain  border  and  the  name  in  a  car- 
touche or  tablet.  Of  such  is  a  well-known 
example  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Huth,  and 
figured  in  the  Catalogue  of  the  Burlington 
Fine  Arts  Club. 

There  is  only  one  other  foreign  collector 
who,  like  Grolier  and  Maioli,  used  the  motto 
placing  his  library  at  the  disposition  of  his 
friends.  This  is  Marc  Laurin  of  Vatervliet, 
near  Bruges.  Little  is  known  of  him  except 
that  he  came  of  an  illustrious  family,  was  a 
scholar  and  antiquary,  the  friend  of  Eras- 
mus, and  that  he  succeeded  Hubert  Golt- 
zius  in  a  work  of  four  volumes,  published 
at  Bruges   between  1563   and  1576,  on  the 

255 


•  ^ 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

illustrations  of  Greek  and  Roman  history 
afforded  by  the  medals  of  antiquity. 

The  bindings  bearing  his  name  and  motto 
are  very  rare.  There  are  four  in  the  Biblio- 
theque  Nationale,  all  very  plain — three  in 
black  leather  and  one  in  brown.  They 
mostly  have  the  motto:  LAURINI  ET 
AMICORUM  in  a  cartouche  on  the  upper 
cover,  and  the  motto  :  VIRTUS  IN  AR- 
DUO  (courage  in  difficulty)  on  the  lower, 
also  in  a  cartouche.  The  one  here  given 
was  exhibited  in  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts 
Club  in  i  891. 

From  the  decorative  point  of  view,  it  is 
chiefly  instructive  as  showing  the  distinction 
that  may  be  got  from  a  few  elements  skil- 
fully combined.  In  England  Thomas  Wot- 
ton,  father  of  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  had  many 
books  bound  with  a  like  motto. 

Among  the  most  beautiful  Italian  bind- 
ings of  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
are  those  known  as  cameo  bindings.  The 
impressions  in  relief  were  obtained  from 
dies  cut   in  intaglio.      The  material  of  the 

256 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

cameos  consists  of  vellum,  pressed  damp 
upon  the  die,  the  cavities  being  rilled  with 
some  sort  of  composition   to  preserve   the 


CICERO.       DE  NATURA    DEORUM.      VENETIIS,   15^3 


shape  of  the  figures.  After  being  transferred 
to  the  centre  of  the  leather  binding,  they 
were  sometimes,  in  the  richer  examples,  gilt 
and  painted. 

The  first  example  shown  here  is  on  the 
"Enchiridium  Grammatices,,  of  Eufrosino 


257 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

Bonini,  a  book  printed  at  Florence  in 
1 5 14.  The  cameo  in  high  relief  of  Julius 
Caesar  is  sunk  into  the  boards,  which  are  of 


ANTHOLOGIA    GR.SCA.       FLORENTINE,     I494 

wood.  In  this  way  the  projecting  surfaces 
of  the  cameo  are  spared  any  friction,  and  it 
is  still  almost  as  fresh  as  the  day  it  was 
done.  The  whole  book  is  blind  -  tooled. 
The  next  is  on  a  Greek  Anthology,  a  first 
edition    on    vellum,  printed  throughout  in 

258 


EARLY    ITALIAN     BINDINGS 


BONINI.       ENCHIRIDIUM   GRAMMATICES.        FIRENZE,    I5I4 

capital  letters  by  Laurentius  Franciscus  de 
Alopa  at  Florence  in  1494.  The  border 
leaves  and  circle   are    in    gold,  the   rest   is 

259 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

blind  work  and  the  cameo  head  is  that 
of  Alexander.  The  other  side  has  a  similar 
head  of  Philip. 

Probably  the  finest  specimen  of  a  cameo 
binding  is  to  be  seen  on  a  copy  of  De  Medi- 
cina  of  Celsus,  which,  like  both  those  above 
described,  is  in  the  British  Museum,  printed 
by  Filippo  Pinzi  at  Venice  in  1497,  anc^> 
later  on,  the  property  of  Grolier.  It  is 
covered  in  olive  brown  morocco.  The  upper 
cover  has  an  embossed  medallion  of  Curtius 
leaping  into  the  abyss  of  the  Forum  at 
Rome,  and  the  lower  cover  another  medal- 
lion of  Horatius  Codes  defending  the  Subli- 
cian  Bridge  against  the  Etruscan  army  under 
Lars  Porsena. 

In  both  these  cameos,  the  modelling  of 
the  figures  is  exquisite,  and  the  elaboration 
of  detail  in  that  on  the  lower  cover  extraor- 
dinary for  its  size.  Each  medallion  has 
a  green  margin  and  is  set  in  a  panel.  The 
intervening  spaces  between  the  cameo  and 
the  panel  are  filled  with  graceful  decoration 
of  a   corded   or  ribband   pattern,  impressed 

260 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 


CELSUS.       DE  MEDICINA.        VENETIIS, 


'A97 


in  blind  and  painted  blue,  in  which  are 
introduced  rings  washed  with  gold,  and  red 
and  gold  roundlets.  This  panel  is  sur- 
rounded by  a  three-fold  border  of  blind- 
tooling,  which  extends  to  the  edge  of  the 
boards;  and  the  whole,  apart  from  the  spe- 
cial feature  of  the  medallion,  is  a  perfect 
example  of  that  simple  but  effective  form 
of  decoration  especially  suited  to  book 
shapes — the  double  border. 


261 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

Mr.  W.  Y.  Fletcher,  for  many  years  As- 
sistant Keeper  of  the  Printed  Books  in  the 
British  Museum,  has  given  much  considera- 
tion to  this  binding,  and  the  result  of  his  re- 
searches shows  the  sort  of  work  that  is  still 
to  be  done  in  connection  with  Bindings, 
and  how  such  work  may  open  outproblems  of 
a  wider  character.  ("Bibliographica/'Vol.  I.) 
He  tells  us  that  the  moulds  from  which 
the  medallions  on  the  Celsus  book  were 
made  were  cut  in  the  first  instance  for  the 
purpose  of  casting  plaques  for  the  orna- 
mentation of  sword  panels ;  and  a  bronze 
plaque  representing  Curtius  leaping  into 
the  abyss,  evidently  produced  from  the  same 
matrix  as  the  medallion  on  this  binding,  is 
shown  in  the  department  of  British  and 
Mediaeval  Antiquities  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum. A  similar  one  of  Horatius  defending 
the  bridge  is  preserved  in  the  Museum  at 
Berlin.  These  plaques  were  designed  and 
executed  by  Giovanni,  called  Giovanni  delle 
Corniole,  or  Giovanni  of  the  Cornelians, 
from  his  skill  in  cutting  stones.      He  was 

262 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

born  at  Pisa  about  1470,  but  lived  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  at  Florence,  where 
he  is  believed  to  have  died  in  151 6.  In 
this  discovery,  we  have  another  instance  of 
that  interdependence  of  the  arts  that  is 
always  so  interesting  to  observe,  and  of  which 
we  see  many  instances  in  the  history  of 
binding. 

Perhaps  the  best  known  cameo  bindings 
are  those  associated  with  the  name  of  De- 
metrio  Canevari,  Physician  to  Pope  Urban 
VIII.  He  must  have  inherited  the  library 
of  books  bound  in  this  way,  for  they  were 
bound  in  Venice  between  1540  and  1560, 
whilst  he  was  not  born  until  1559.  They 
remained  intact  in  the  Vico  Lucoli  at  Genoa 
until  the  year  1823.  They  are  easily  recog- 
nised by  their  fine  central  oval  stamp  of 
Apollo  driving  his  two-horsed  chariot  over 
the  waves  towards  a  rock  on  which  is 
Pegasus.  The  medallion  is  surrounded  by 
the  Greek  motto:  OPSill  KAI MH A0EIQ1 
(Straightforward  and  not  obliquely.)  This 
motto,  like  so  many  others  on  bindings,  is 

263 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

something  of  an  enigma.  It  was  probably 
a  reference  to  one  of  the  epithets  of  Apollo, 
who  was  sometimes  called  Apolloloxias,  from 
his  intricate  and  ambiguous  oracles.  The 
dies  from  which  the  cameo  is  stamped  vary 
with  the  size  of  the  book,  and  the  cameos 
are  mostly  painted  in  green,  silver  and  gold. 
The  Canevari  books  are  fairly  numerous  and 
very  elaborate  examples  are  to  be  found 
amongst  them.  The  oval  stamp  is  often  set 
in  the  interlaced  and  flowered  work  found 
on  Aldine  bindings,  with  the  solid  Venetian 
tools.  Our  example  is  a  copy  of  the  "  His- 
toria  Anglica  "of  Polydore  Vergil,  printed  at 
Basle  in  1534,  and  now  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum. 

It  must  always  seem  a  strange  fact  that 
Italy,  though  the  originator  of  artistic  bind- 
ings, had  never  any  permanent  school.  To 
her  we  owe  both  the  introduction  of  gold 
tooling  into  Europe  and  the  inspiration  in 
ornament  as  applied  to  the  decoration  of 
books  that  determined  the  designs  used  in 
France  for  more  than  a  century  after  and 

264 


EARLY    ITALIAN    BINDINGS 

that  filtered  through  France  into   England 
for  a  still  longer  period.   Nevertheless  Italian 


POLYDORI  VERGILII  ANGLICA  HISTORIA.        BASILED,    1534 

binding  ceased  to  exist  after  the  first  half 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  we  must  turn 
to  France  to  find  it  taking  root  and  grow- 

265 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

ing  with  a  vitality  that  lasted  for  nearly 
two  centuries  and  a  half.  There  then  it 
became  established  with  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century  under  the  inspiration 
of  Italy  and  with  the  patronage  of  Kings  and 
Princes  and  the  great  scholars  of  the  time. 
With  a  guild  for  its  protection  it  made  the 
most  rapid  progress  towards  perfection  and 
the  acquisition  of  a  native  style,  and  it  is  in 
the  magnificent  series  of  French  royal  bind- 
ings that  the  best  traditions  of  the  art  can 
henceforth  be  most  appropriately  studied. 


SOME  NOTES  ON  PATTERN- 
MAKING 


VIII 


SOME   NOTES    ON    PATTERN-MAKING 


S|Sj 

HE  constant  production  of 
designs  for  any  special  pur- 
pose is  apt  to  become  a 
matter  of  weariness  as  well 
as  of  difficulty  to  those  un- 
able to  rest  satisfied  in  reiteration  without 
novelty,  and  the  stereotyped  repetition  of 
motives  on  more  or  less  mechanical  lines. 

No  doubt  the  effort  to  avoid  working  in 
a  groove  belongs  to  the  designer  in  any  art, 
even  the  highest,  but  must  of  necessity  pur- 
sue those  most  who  are  occupied  with  the 
humbler  arts,  since  these  cannot,  from  their 
restricted  nature,  give  the  artist  as  much 
scope  as  the  more  important.      Still,  it  is  not 

269 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

only  a  higher  or  lower  position  in  the  hier- 
archy of  the  applied  arts  that  determines  the 
limitations  of  ornament  appropriate  to  each. 
Jewelry,  for  example,  though  far  removed  in 
its  scope  from,  let  us  say,  architectural  decora- 
tion, yet  admits  of  almost  endless  diversity  of 
shape,  color,  and  material.  So  likewise  do  fur- 
niture, lace,  and  many  another  of  the  useful 


PERSIAN  TILE,    I 

arts.  But  some,  like  bookbinding,  which  forms 
the  text  of  these  remarks,  are  limited  in 
special  ways  which  the  decorator  is  bound 
to  grasp  at  once,  and  with  complete  reali- 
sation of  their  unalterable  character.  The 
chronicle  of  the  artistic  side  of  bookbind- 
ing is  at   the  outset   full  of  the  attempt  to 

270 


>  3  o     >      >>>*,>, 


RUBAIYAT  OF  OMAR  KHAYYAM  (DOUBLURE) 


RUBAIYAT  OF  OMAR  KHAYYAM,  iSjZ 


SOME    NOTES    ON    PATTERN-MAKING 

get  over  the  limitation  of  material.  In 
the  early  days,  when  books  were  scarce  and 
consequently  of  indefinite  value,  the  pre- 
cious metals,  often  in  combination  with 
enamel  and  carved  ivory,  were  devoted  to 
their  adornment.  In  those  days  when  books 
were  manuscripts  on  vellum,  weight  in 
the  covers  was  a  desirable  feature  rather 
than  the  reverse,  and  thus  the  affixing  of 
metal  or  other  plaques  to  the  thick  wooden 
boards  was  practicable  and  useful  as  well  as 
ornamental.  Even  after  the  multiplication 
of  books  through  printing,  it  was  long  be- 
fore any  restriction  in  the  matter  of  mate- 
rial for  covers  was  recognised,  and  it  was 
not  until  the  seventeenth  century  that  the 
almost  universal  adoption  of  some  form  of 
leather  superseded  the  employment  of  vel- 
vet, silk,  embroideries,  pierced  metal,  tor- 
toise shell,  and  the  like.  From  time  to  time, 
up  to  the  present  day,  attempts  have  been 
made  to  revive  the  old  custom  of  coverings 
other  than  leather  or  vellum,  but  the  hard 
usage  entailed  by  frequent  handling,  com- 

273 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

bined  with  the  modern  conditions  of  dirt 
and  the  usual  library  conventions,  have 
shown  all  such  efforts  to  be  of  an  unpracti- 
cal nature. 

The  limitations  that  more  especially  con- 
cern us  in  this  paper  are  not  those  of  ma- 
terial, but  the  even  more  unalterable  ones 
of  size  and   shape.      I   say   unalterable,  be- 


PERSIAN  PLATE,    2 


cause,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  from  the 
designer's  point  of  view,  they  are  so.  Books 
may  vary  from  321110  to  folio,  they  may  be 
relatively  narrow  or  wide,  but  they  are 
always  severely  rectangular,  and  no  attempts 
to  ignore  this  fact  have  ever  been  crowned 
with  success.  Here  again,  as  we  review 
successive  chapters  in  the  history  of  bind- 
ing, we  see  the  artist's  various  attempts  to 

174 


THE    POEMS    OF    SHELLEY.        VALE    PRESS,    I9O] 


THE   SONNETS    OF    SHAKESPEARE.       VALE    PRESS,    1 899 


SOME    NOTES    ON    PATTERN-MAKING 

free  himself  from  this  particular  limitation  ; 
we  come  upon  designs  that  treat  both  sides  V 
and  the  back  as  the  unit,  so  that  when  the 
book  is  closed  and  on  a  table,  the  pattern 
appears  only  in  a  fragmentary  state ;  we 
see  others  that  seem  purposely  to  contro- 
vert, so  to  speak,  the  boundary  lines,  as  if 
endeavouring  to  make  of  no  avail  the  right 
angles  of  the  carefully  squared  boards  ;  and 
with  the  latest  fashion  of  eccentricity  and  v 
affectation  in  things  ornamental,  we  get 
what  may  be  called  the  Japanese  applica- 
tion of  unconnected  and  generally  natural- 
istic detail  or  the  fireworks  made  out  of 
peacocks'  tails,  curves  and  dashes — splutter- 
ings  of  the  unrestrained  fancy  and  the  un- 
tutored hand. 

I  want  to  direct  the  attention  of  those 
who  undertake  the  designing  of  book  cov- 
ers to  the  boundless  field  that  lies  open  in 
the  direction  of  Oriental  art.  It  is  nothing 
new ;  it  has  always  been  free  to  the  worker 
in  every  department  through  public  mu- 
seums and  illustrated  accounts  of  private  col- 

277 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

lections,  but  there  seem  few  able  or  willing 
to  learn  the  lessons  it  offers,  although  Wil- 
liam Morris  has  shown  ably  enough  to  the 
present  generation,  what  a  mine  of  wealth 
lies  ready  to  him  who  can  exploit  it. 

And  first  in  importance   comes  that  les- 


PERSIAN    TILE.     3 

son  of  the  East — so  hard,  apparently,  of 
comprehension  by  the  Western  mind — the 
necessity  for  conventionalising  natural  forms. 
It  may  be  said  of  nearly  all  modern  English 
work,  and  of  most  French,  that  there  is 
little  left  of  decorative  value  between  the 
extremes  of  arbitrary  invention  on  the  one 
hand  and  unadulterated  naturalism  on  the 
other.      Our    schools    of  embroidery    and 

278 


SOME    NOTES    ON    PATTERN-MAKING 

wood-carving,  our  sculptured  and  plastered 
reliefs,  our  beaten  metal  and  our  painted  pot- 
tery, all  vie  with  each  other  in  giving  the 
most  faithful  transcript  of  nature.  The  ar- 
tificiality of  mind  and  manner  that  was  a 
feature  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  its  litera- 
ture, its  art,  and  its  society,  gave  place  to  a 


PERSIAN    TILE.     4 


reaction,  as  it  was  bound  to  do,  and  "the 
return  to  nature  "  is  still  working  as  a  leaven 
in  all  regions  of  the  human  mind.  But  L 
it  is  time  for  realisation  that  in  the  industrial 
arts  the  reproduction  of  naturalistic  detail 
is  not  of  necessity  ornament.  To  be  so,  it 
must  be  transmuted  by  the  process  of  intel- 
ligent selection — so  clumsily  called  conven- 
tionalising— into  what  will  bear  application 

279 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

and  repetition  in  a  given  space  and  in  a 
given  material  that  has  its  own  special  char- 
acteristics. 

Narcissus  and  snowdrops  hammered  on  a 
copper  coal  box  do  not  glorify  it  as  a  re- 
ceptacle of  coals,  nor  does  the  wall-paper 
covered  with  faithfully  drawn  and  colored 
clematis  give  even  the  allusion  of  reality, 
much  less  the  satisfaction  of  country  visions, 
far  more  effective  in  the  mind's  eye  alone. 
Just  as  it  is  no  use  to  take  any  art  out  of 
its  legitimate  sphere  and  demand  of  it  what 
it  cannot  give,  so  is  it  as  purposeless  to  ask 
the  effect  of  nature  from  flower  and  fruit  in 
their  application  to  ornament.  Our  French 
neighbours  have  not  grasped  this  truth  in  its 
entirety,  though  they  rarely  represent  nature 
with  the  triviality  so  often  to  be  found  on  our 
common  objects  of  every-day  use.  But  even 
Marius  Michel,  to  whose  efforts  it  is  largely 
due  that  modernTrench  bindings  have  ceased 
to  be  reproductions  of  the  old,  is  too  apt  to 
let  his  intimate  acquaintance  with  natural 
floral   forms   suffice   for    the   adornment   of 

a8o 


SOME    NOTES    ON    PATTERN-MAKING 

much  of  his  fine  work.  This,  too,  is  in 
despite  of  his  better  judgment,  for  his  book 
on  "  The  Ornamentation  of  Modern  Bind- 
ings" contains  some  admirable  remarks  on  v 
the  importance  of  avoiding  this  pitfall  to 
those  who  go  to  the  country  for  inspiration 
in  design.  Many  of  the  most  attractive  re- 
cent French  books  are  inlaid  with  that  fine 
instinct  for  the  harmonious  blending  of 
colours  that  is  a  national  gift,  but  as  regards 
the  point  under  discussion  this  very  colour 
sense  more  often  than  not  presents  an  added 
snare,  and  we  find  covers  of  exquisite  work- 
manship showing  purple  irises,  climbing 
clematis,  and  the  like,  which  are  most  per- 
fect copies  in  colour  as  well  as  drawing  of 
the  growing  plant. 

Few  things  are  more  difficult  than  to  de- 
fine the  precise  nature  of  the  treatment  of 
growing  things  which  renders  them  fit  ob- 
jects for  decoration,  except,  perhaps,  to 
teach  how  it  is  done.  Possibly  those  whose 
instinct  is  least  likely  to  err  would  find  it 
most  impossible  of  explanation.      We  will 

281 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

endeavour  to  state  the  most  important  points 
in  connection  with  it,  though  a  careful 
study  of  the  art  of  those  nations  that  have 
solved  the  problem  most  successfully  will 
be  the  surest  way  of  attaining  to  a  realisa- 
tion of  the  essentials.  In  the  first  place, 
\jthen,  the  servile  imitation  of  natural  growth 
is  to  be  strictly  guarded  against,  for  whilst 
nature  never  makes  two  leaves  or  blossoms 
alike,  art,  in  consequence  of  the  restriction 
of  its  tools  and  material,  must  frankly  ac- 
cept repetition. 

Furthermore,  it  is  preferable  to  choose 
the  forms  that  are  most  salient_in^  feature 
and  simple  in  outline  rather  than  those  of 
which  the  character  is  shown  in  the  multi- 
plicity or  the  delicacy  of  their  detail.  The 
natural  plant  should  be  studied  and  both  ac- 
centuated and  simplified  in  translation.  The 
rigid,  unyielding  lines  of  one  may  be  em- 
phasised, whilst  another  of  climbing  habit 
may  have  its  convolutions  insisted  on  in  the 
curves  of  a  flowing  arabesque. 

What  can  never  be  explained  or  taught 
282 


LES    BALLADES    DE    VILLON.        VALE    PRESS,    I9OO 


RUBAIYAT    OF    OMAR     KHAYYAM,    1 859 


SOME    NOTES    ON    PATTERN-MAKING 

is  just  the  unconscious  effort  by  which  the 
true  decorator  turns  the  harvest  of  flower 
and  fruit  that  lies  ready  to  his  hand  into 
appropriate  ornament  without  doing  violence  u 
to  the  natural  trend  of  leaf  or  blossom — 
thus  effecting  the  supreme  idealisation  of 
the  type-form. 

Again,  there  must  be  a  certain  feeling 
for  the  scale  on  which  it  is  desirable  to  re- 
produce particular  plant-forms.  It  would  be 
inappropriate,  for  example,  to  give  the 
effect  of  excessive  reduction  of  such  as  are 
always  large  in  their  natural  growth,  or  of 
undue  magnitude  to  those  like  violet  and 
snowdrop,  that  are  lowly  in  their  habit. 
By  such  treatment  they  would  inevitably 
lose  both  character  and  significance. 

Finally,  it  is  necessary  for  decorative 
convention  that  there  should  be  a  certain 
symmetrical  disposition  of  the  material 
chosen  when  once  its  essentials  have  been 
grasped  and  its  diversity  of  form  simplified 
to  the  artist's  use,  for  only  so  can  the  eye 
rest  upon  it  with  satisfaction.     When  one 

285 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

looks  at  nature,  there  are  no  boundaries  ex- 
cept those  set  by  the  limits  of  the  field  of 
vision,  and  they  are  not  hard,  but  melt  away 
so  that  there  is  no  consciousness  of  any  out- 
line or  defining  framework  to  the  picture. 
But  it   is  far   otherwise   with   most  objects 


PERSIAN    TILE.     5 


that  offer  scope  for  decoration,  and  espe- 
cially with  those  of  panel  form.  In  bind- 
ings one  may  almost  say  that  the  limitation 
of  the  book  is  the  first  thing  of  which  one 
is  aware.  Decoration,  therefore,  should  be 
well  contained  within  the  natural  boundary 
lines  of  whatever  it  is  applied  to,  and  should 
avoid  both  the  opposite  defects  of  being  too 
obvious  or  too  involved.    If  it  is  the  first,  it 


286 


SOME    NOTES    ON    PATTERN-MAKING 

will  probably  be  trivial ;  if  the  second,  the 
mind  will  at  once  set  to  work  upon  it  as  on 
a  puzzle.  ^Esthetic  pleasure  can  be  given v 
by  the  simplest  ornament  or  the  humblest 
object,  but  triviality  is  not  simplicity ',  and 
without  the  element  of  dignity  that  be- 
longs to  real  simplicity  the  pleasure  will  be 
absent.  Nor  is  it  less  important  that  the 
mind  should  have  a  sense  of  rest,  which  it 
can  never  get  when  the  attention  is  absorbed 
with  the  effort  to  unravel  a  complicated  or 
perhaps  only  ingeniously  elaborated  pattern. 
If  the  main  lines  are  clear  and  uninvolved, 
a  feeling  of  enjoyment  is  rapidly  produced, 
and  the  attendant  detail  may  be  disposed  in 
moderate  intricacy  without  detracting  from 
the  sense  of  satisfied  repose. 

We  said  before  that  the  best  way  of  un- 
derstanding this  necessary  process  of  selec- 
tion and  adaptation  in  its  application  to 
nature  for  purposes  of  art,  lay  in  examining 
the  ornament  of  those  countries  which  have 
successfully  solved  the  decorative  problem. 
In  my  opinion  no  nation  succeeded  so  admi- 

287 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

rably  as  Persia,  and  it  was  in  the  attempt  to 
turn  the  study  of  her  art  to  account  in  the 
matter  of  designs  for  bindings  that  these 
notes  originated. 

Every  country  has  achieved  a  triumph 
in  the  employment  of  some  one-plant  form 
for  its  ornamental  uses.  Egypt  and  Assyria 
appropriated  the  lotus  and  the  palm ;  Greece 
the  acanthus,  the  vine,  and  the  honeysuckle ; 
China  the  aster  and  the  peony;  Japan  the 
almond  blossom  and  chrysanthemum,  and 
so  on.  The  genius  of  the  Persians  shows 
itself  over  a  wider  field,  but  the  pomegran- 
ate and  vine,  the  iris  and  pink,  seem  to 
have  been  selected  for  most  frequent  treat- 
ment. 

The  importance  of  Persian  art  to  the  de- 
signer lies  in  several  directions.  First,  in 
the  frank  and  free  acceptance  of  the  natural 
limitations  of  form  in  the  various  objects 
decorated.  In  weaving  carpets,  the  straight 
lines  serve  as  inspiration  for  the  border 
and  the  panel ;  in  painting  pottery,  the 
curves  of  the  ewer  and  the  bowl  are  made 

288 


SOME    NOTES    ON     PATTERN-MAKING 

to  contribute  their  value  to  the  ornament. 
Nothing  is  more  delightfully  instructive  than 
to  see  the  same  detail  applied  under  funda- 
mentally different  conditions.  As  an  example 
of  this,  the  reader  can  look  at  the  border  of 
a  tile  (Figure  i)  and  the  bottom  of  a  plate 
(Figure  2)  which  have  the  same  motive 
dexterously  suited  respectively  to  the  square 
and  the  curve ;  and  there  is  a  like  interest- 
ing treatment  of  a  climbing  plant  with 
large  leaf  (Figures  3  and  6)  frequently 
found  both  in  the  tapestry  and  the  pottery 
of  the  country. 

Secondly,  the  Persians  ornamented  arti- 
cles of  daily  use  and  often  of  very  little 
value,  and  their  taste  for  art  was  so  wide- 
spread that  the  designs  were  obviously  made 
then,  as  they  are  to  this  day,  by  the  artisans 
themselves,  and  not  by  artists  in  prepara- 
tion for  the '  workman.  Their  decoration 
has,  therefore,  that  infinite  variety  which  is 
only  to  be  found  under  like  circumstances. 

Thirdly,  there  is  the  opportunity  of  see- 
ing the  same  motive  treated  both  natural- 

289 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR     CRAFT 

istically  as  well  as  with  the  conventions  nec- 
essary for  its  adaptation  to  more  rigid 
schemes,  and  consequently  of  making  a  com- 
parison in  the  same  field  of  observation. 
As  examples  of  wholly  admirable  conven- 
tion, it  is  not  possible  to  find  anything  to 
surpass  the  pomegranate  (Figure  4)  border 
and  the  rose  tile  (Figure  5)  here  given,  whilst 
the  natural  rendering  of  iris  and  pink,  of 
bud  and  blossom,  is  seen  in  tile  after  tile, 
illustrations  of  which  we  would  fain  give  if 
space  permitted. 

Lastly,  with  all  the  careful  study  of  na- 
tural growth  and  blossom,  and  an  apprecia- 
tion of  their  minutest  details  which  one  sees 
in  the  more  naturalistic  designs,  the  Persians 
were  not  afraid  to  let  imagination,  once 
started  by  some  common  flower  or  accident 
of  growth,  run  riot  on  its  own  lines,  so  that 
forms  only  remotely  resembling  flowers 
came  forth  in  profusion,  nature  merely 
hinting  to  the  workman  the  direction  in 
which  to  set  his  fancy  free.  Tile  after  tile, 
again,  is  thus  filled  with  flower-forms  hav- 

290 


SOME    NOTES    ON    PATTERN-MAKING 

ing  only  the  slightest  connection  with  any- 
garden  plant,  but  excellent  as  ornament  and 
distributed  over  a  limited  space  with  con- 
summate skill  and  the  most  satisfactory  re- 
sults. 

In  conclusion,   I  would  suggest  that  the 
binder  of  modern  books,  avoiding  both  the 


*^ri 

P^t 

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k/  fit  .  * 

^.a£SF% 

PERSIAN    TILE.    6 


old  traditional  lines  of  historic  ornament, 
except  where  such  are  specially  appropriate, 
and  the  too  naturalistic  ones  so  much  in 
vogue  of  late  years,  may  vary  his  tools  by 
seeking  a  new  fount  of  inspiration  in  the 
happy  achievements  of  Eastern  decorative 
art. 

If  it  is  objected  that  this  is  mere  plagiar- 
ism, and  that  what  is  wanted  is  the  inven- 


291 


BOOKBINDERS    AND    THEIR    CRAFT 

tion  of  fresh  matter,  I  would  answer  that 
we  must  be  honest  and  admit  that  there  is 
little  absolutely  new.  Moreover,  it  often  hap- 
pens, that  when  there  is  an  appearance  of 
novelty,  the  illusion  is  really  due  to  our  ig- 
norance of  what  has  been  already  done  some- 
where and  somehow.  At  any  rate,  few  can 
imagine  themselves  creative  artists,  and  it  is 
well  to  recognise  that  the  next  best  thing, 
and  the  only  honest  and  possible  thing  for 
the  majority  engaged  in  pattern-making,  is 
a  fearless  research  in  the  wide  field  of  the  art 
of  different  nations  at  different  epochs.  There 
may  follow  free  annexation  of  such  ideas  and 
material  as  we  find  available  for  the  scope  of 
our  own  efforts  if — and  this  is  a  condition  of 
chief  importance  —  such  borrowed  sources 
of  inspiration  are  translated  into  the  terms  of 
our  own  temperament.  In  this  way  will  the 
adopted  motives  of  decoration  cease  to  be  out 
of  place  in  their  new  environment ;  they 
will  cease  to  appear  as  belonging  exclusively 
to  the  country  of  their  inception,  and  by 
force  of  application  in  a  new  sphere  and  as 

292 


SOME    NOTES    ON    PATTERN-MAKING 

instruments  of  a  mind  conscious  of  its  own 
aims,  they  will  become  what  all  tools  and 
material  should  become,  a  means  of  giving 
effect  to  the  personality  of  the  workman. 

These  observations  are  the  result  of  per- 
sonal efforts  on  the  lines  indicated  and  the 
plates  that  are  printed  herewith  are  given 
in  illustration  of  such  attempts. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Aberdeen  Press,  21. 
Aldus,  103,  176,  213,  216. 
Aldine  bindings,  228-242. 
Alyat,  Alexandre,  185. 
Andrews,  Mr.  W   L.,  46,  49. 

Badier,  Florimond,  74-76. 
Ballagny,   69. 
Bauchart,  M.  Quentin,  60. 
Beraldi,  M.  H.,  132,  145. 
Bloc,  Ludovicus,    179. 
Bollcaert,  Johannes,  179. 
Bozerian,  le  Jeune,  55. 
Bradel,  cartonnage  a  la,  154. 

Cable  patterns,  220. 

Cape,  127. 

Cameo  bindings,  256-264. 

Canevari,  Demetrio,  263. 

Carayon,  E.,  154. 

Caxton,  175,  192. 

Chepman,  Walter,  12. 

Chepman,  David,  20. 

Charles  VIII. ,  65. 

Charles  IX.,  65,  245,  250. 

Chambolle,     114,     116,     123, 

127. 
Clement  VII.,  244. 
Cracherode,  Mr.  C.  M.,  45. 
Cuir  bouilli,  187. 
Cuzin,  Francois,  119,  127. 

David,  123,  127. 
Derome,  37,  106. 
Dibdin,  32. 
Douce  collection,  17. 


Duff,    Mr.    E.    Gordon,    171, 

172,  190. 
Dupuy,  76. 
Durham  bindings,  170. 
Duru,  1 14,  127. 

Egmondt,  Frederic,    194,    195. 
Elmsley,  46. 
Englemann,  122. 
Eves,  The,  66,    74,    101,    103, 
1 04. 

Fletcher,  Mr.  W.  Y.,  76,  197, 

262. 
Fouquet,  76. 
Frangois  I.,  244,    245. 

Gavere,  Joris  de,  180. 

German  stamped  leather,  187. 

Giunta,  Philippo  de,  235. 

Godfrey,  198. 

Grolier  Club,  49. 

Grolier,    Jean,    60,    240,    242- 

250. 
Gruel,  Leon,  59,  74,  121,  150, 

189. 
Guild  of  Binders  and  Gilders,  6, 

60. 

Harleian  collection,  33. 

Hardy,  127. 

Henri  II.,  65,   100,    127,    223, 

245. 
Henri  III.,  74. 
Henry  VII.,  192. 
Henry  VIII.,  192,  194. 


297 


INDEX 


Hunte,  Thomas,  193. 
Huvin,  J.,  184. 

Inlaid  bindings,  English,  8. 

Jacobi,  Henry,  196. 
James  IV.,  12. 
James  V.,  12. 
Johnson,  Dr.,  34. 
Joly,   123. 


Motte,  123. 

Moulin,  Jehan,  17,  95,  184. 

Myllar,  Andrew,  12. 

Netherlandish  bindings,  92,  174, 

183. 
Nichols's    Literary    Anecdotes, 

Norins,  Jean,  183. 
Notary,  Julian,  196. 


Kerver,  Thielman,  196. 
Koburger,  Anthony,  19 


Osborne,  Thomas,  32. 
Oxford  Press,  193. 


La  Caille,  60. 

Lawrin,  Marc,  248,  250,  255. 

Lecompte,  Nicholas,  194. 

Le  Gascon,  74,  75,  76,  77,  103, 

104,  106. 
Leroux,  de  Lincy,  M.,  60. 
Lewis,  Charles,  55. 
Librarii,    168. 
Lienard,    123. 
Loisetier,   123. 
Lortic,   Edmond,  118. 
Lottie,   Marcelin,  116. 
Lottin,  60. 
Louis  XL,  64,  250. 
Louis  XII. ,  65,  244. 
Lyonnese  bindings,  204-207. 


Panel    stamps,     Netheilandish, 

174,  181. 
Panel  stamps,  French,  182,  186. 
Panel     stamps,     English,     191- 

198. 
Payne,   Roger,  29-56. 
Payne,  Tom,  34,  35. 
Persian  Art,  288. 
Peres  Mathurins,  Church  of,  66, 

67. 
Pigoreau,  69. 
Pithou,  248. 
Pote,  32. 

Pudsey,  Bishop,  91,  171. 
Puy,  Claude  du,  248. 
Pynson,  195. 


Mace,  R.,  184. 
Macarthy,  Count,  37. 
Magnier,  119. 

Maioli,  Tommaso,  248,  250. 
Mathias,  T.  G.,  34. 
Mearne,  Samuel,  42 
Meivill,  21. 
Mercier,  Emile,   119. 
Meunier,  Charles,  146 
Michel,   Marius,  60,  115,  123. 
Michel,    Marius  H.,  126,  149, 

280, 
Moseley,  Dr.,  ^8,  45,  49. 


Raban,  Edward,  21. 
Raparlier,  Romain,  152. 
Reiss,    126. 

Renaissance,  Italian,  213. 
Reynes,  John,  196. 
Richard  J.,  184. 
Richard  III.,  192,  193. 
Richenbach,  John,  190. 
Roce,  Denis,  184. 
Rood,  Theodore,  193. 
Rossigneux,  123. 
Ruban,  Petrus,  138. 
Ry lands  Library,  46. 


.98 


INDEX 


Seguier,  76. 

Singleton,  Nicolas,  198. 
Smeers,  119. 

Spencer,  Lord,  37,  45,  46. 
Speryng,  Nicholas,  197. 
Stationarii,   167. 
St.     Andre-des  -  Arts,    Church 
of,  63,  64,  66. 

Thibaron,  123,  127. 
Thoinan,  Ernest,  4,  59-77 
Thou,  Christophe  de,  244,  248. 
Thouvenin,  123 
Tory,  Geoffroy,  199-203,  248 
Trautz- Bauzonnet,  114. 


University  of  Paris,  63,  65,  68, 

72. 
Urban  VIII.,  263. 

Venetian  bindings,  2 1  6. 
Vogel,  Johannis,  19c. 
Vulcanius,  Martinus,  180. 

Weale,    Mr.    H.    James,     169, 

189. 
Weir,  Richard,  37. 
William,  Bishop  of  Aberdeen, 

14. 
Worde,  Wynken  de,  193. 
Wotton,  Thomas,  256. 


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